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Edinburgh, Ctall & Inglis 6 George Street. 



FAMILY EDITION. 



POETICAL WORKS AM) LETTERS 



ROBERT BURNS, 

WITH COPIOUS MARGINAL EXPLANATIONS OF 
THE SCOTCH WORDS, 

AND LIFE. 



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GALL & INGLIS, 6 GEORGE STREET, 






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THE 



LIFE OE EOBEET BURNS. 



Robert Burns was born on the 25th of January 1759, in a 
small roadside cottage, which still stands, about a mile and a-half 
inland from the county-town and bay of Ayr, on the south-western 
Scottish coast. His father was from the north, the son of a small 
farmer , but after various independent struggles to get on in other 
places, had at least gained by experience, and settled down as 
working-gardener to a gentleman who showed him the kindness 
>f a patron. He was still a poor man, occupying the rank of a 
peasant, in a thatched hat, built by his own hands; though with 
ill the intelligence and more than the ordinary integrity of his 
class, still hopeful of raising himself. The mother belonged to 
the same station, being a farmer's daughter from the neighbour- 
hood, homely, placid, careful, and of the average education for 
her degree ; looking up to her husband as, what he really was, 
strong in character, shrewd from knowledge of the world and 
its trials, an industrious, thoughtful, devout man. In William 
Burness and Agnes Brown, their first son had at all events the 
advantage of parents who were models of excellence for their con- 
dition in life ; and if his childhood was literally that of a peasant, 
born to toil, there were, as has been well remarked by his last and 
most adequate biographer, " fortunate circumstances in his posi- 
tion." What part these fortunate circumstances must have had 
in raising him to conspicuousness above every other peasant who 
has yet lived, — and what part in his lot was unpropitlous, — it may 
be amain object of the following sketch to suggest, while as much 
as possible separating both these considerations from the merit 
and the fault which were his own. 

The father's wish to procure, for all his children, the best educa- 
tion which his means allowed, was characteristic even beyond 
Ihe usual Scottish desire. Robert was sent in his sixth year to a 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 



small school at Alloway Mill, about a mile off; but the anxiety for 
his instruction was not easily satisfied, and William Burn ess soon 
took the chief part in bringing to the immediate vicinity a young 
man whom he knew, to teach his own along with the neighbours' 
children, at once more ably, and, doubtless, more under hints from 
parental notice. Burness himself was a thinking, reading man, 
with views of his own even on points of orthodoxy : he ruled 
his family with a firm hand, attentive to every detail of their con- 
duct; nor need it be specially inferred from the household priest- 
hood of the " Cottar's Saturday Night," how their progress in the 
Shorter Catechism and Bible knowledge was directly seen to, at 
leisure hours or stated intervals. 

But the early tutor of Burns and of his next brother, Gilbert* 
deserves particular mention, as having contributed no slight share 
among the favourable influences, mental if not moral, which 
were then profited by. John Murdoch was no common peda- 
gogue, having already, at the age of eighteen, begun to apply 
improved methods of teaching, afterwards developed by him 
in publication. He saw the germs of solid ability in the elder 
©f *the two boys, making him a favourite pupil, though fancying 
Gilbert the livelier. He was careful to impress the precise mean- 
ing of every word, and, to prevent mere learning by rote, made 
them frequently turn passages of verse into natural prose order. 
Among his branches of education was that of vocal psalmody ; 
with regard to which Robert was peculiarly dull, and his attempts 
tuneless. Murdoch, for his own improvement, subsequently be- 
gan to learn French, and imparted the benefit of his proficiency 
to young Burns ; he became afterwards, also, the instigator to 
,his acquiring some Latin : in the former of which accomplish- 
ments the poet somewhat plumed himself in later life. 

The positive amount of imparted and regular scholarly learning 
he possessed in the end was not great, indeed, as distinguished from 
knowledge acquired at random, by unguided effort; yet Shakspeare 
had scarcely greater, allowing a good deal for a darker age, which 
was in reality more alive to classical influence. The chief dif- 
ference seems to have lain in the Scotch peasant's self-educating 
disadvantages, his poorer country, and the less generous time on 
which he was cast ; under impulses less sustained by common 
sympathy, less tending to direct emolument, and less accustomed 
to indulgence or balanced by a view to success in the world. 
Conceivable ambition of that kind was not very high near Ayr, 
before steam-engines worked, or profitable books were common, 
where the drama had never flourished ; and such ambition did not 
so much as enter into the minds of William Burness and John 
Murdoch, whose teaching combined but two objects, — present fit- 
ness to take up a farm, or perhaps enter the parochial ministry, 
snd future welfare in another world. Nor can the merit be added 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 



to Murdoch's side, that he even insisted en blending the two har- 
moniously: his intellectual creed might quite agree with that of 
his humble patron, yet most undoubtedly his practice did'not. 
Having obtained a better situation, and come to spend his fare- 
well night, he brought, among other parting gifts — what the father 
would infallibly have forbidden had he known more of general 
literature — the Titus Andronicus of Shakspeare, which Murdoch 
began to read aloud. It is curious that Robert was then the chief 
objector to this work of an earlier prodigy; soon stubbornly threat- 
ening, if it were left, to burn it for the savage element of tragedy 
it displayed ; whereupon the tutor, declaring that he liked such 
sensibility, defended his pupil from all charge of ingratitude, and 
left a French comedy, the School for Love, instead. 

Mr Murdoch not long afterwards resumed his preceptorship, 
when elected English teacher at Ayr, whither Robert was sent 
for a short period, between times of field-work ; though the for- 
mer was eventually obliged to resign his place, from the conse- 
quences of disrespectful language on his part when " one evening 
overtaken in liquor/' about the parish minister. But the father 
himself took up the educational duty when otherwise unfulfilled ; 
even mingling it with the joint labour required by a small farm, 
now entered on through assistance from his kind employer. 
This change was still with a view to keep his children under his 
own eye, until, to use the son's own words, " they could decern 
between good and evil;" and in order that, continuing in their 
peasant station, they might not be " marched off to be among 
the little underlings about a farm-house." The lease of a farm 
on the master's estate had been ventured on, ±o justify which 
needed every effort from them all; while, as they accompanied 
him at work, he " was at great pains to lead the conversation to 
such subjects as might tend to increase our knowledge, or confirm 
us in virtuous habits." Books were borrowed by him for their 
behoof, chiefly containing scientific information. From Stack- 
house's History of the Bible, taken in by parts, " Robert collected," 
says his brother, u a competent knowledge of ancient history ; for 
no book was so voluminous as to slacken his industry, or so an- 
tiquated as to damp his researches." And let one notable trait 
be included in the picture of the father, to whom, above all, was 
owing, probably, what was most ethereal and heaven-born in the 
mingled product of Burns's genius : taking it from the authority 
of that more worldly source, Mr Murdoch, whose respect for Wil- 
liam Burness seems to have approached affection. * I think I 
never saw him angry but twice ; the one time it was with the 
foreman of the band for not reaping the field as he was desired ; 
and the other time it was with an old man for using smutty inu- 
endoes and double entendres. "Were every foul-mouthed old man 
to receive a seasonable check in this way, it would be to the ad» 



Vl LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

vantage of the rising generation. * » * I shall only add, that ho 
carefully practised every known duty, and avoided everything that 
was criminal; or, in the apostle's words, Herein did he exercise 
himself, in living a life void of offence towards God and towards men. 
Oh for a world of men of such dispositions !" 

Robert Burns had other teachers, too ; teachers of that secret 
and congenial kind who have most to do with the poetic train- 
ing. The facts above given, indeed, with a few irregular ekings- 
out at odd times, comprehend the whole of his formal schooling ; 
which was both small and short, compared with the average in 
Scotland for his own rank. But in his infant and boyish days, as 
he has told us, he " owed much to an old woman who resided in 
the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and super- 
stition ; she had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country 
of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, 
witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, 
wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, 
and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry, 
but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, 
in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in 
suspicious places ; and though nobody can be more sceptical than 
I am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to 
shake off these idle terrors.". From this catalogue of legendary 
wonders and terrors— enumerated so superciliously, with such a 
superior air of eighteenth-century knowledge and of contempt for 
the humble instrument, poor Betty Davidson, whose mirthful 
temperament made her a great favourite with the children — there 
is plainly obviou^ a defect of the constructive instinct as well as 
of the reverent spirit, aggravated by the period he lived in, and 
characteristic of his works on the whole ; though not incompa- 
tible with lingering side-glances of association or humour, as ad- 
mirably exemplified in " Tarn O'Shanter." He seldom attempted 
any composition depending for its interest on the story, or upon the 
historical basis. His preference of the lyric to the ballad, and his 
subjection to single strong impulses, rather than his mastery of 
varied tendencies ; with the slighting opinion he has critically ex- 
pressed as to fine relics of the old Border minstrelsy, now admired ; 
all bear out the view which his life impresses, — that if Burns's self- 
education had less over-balanced the authoritative training he 
received, or could that age have remedied the want by any one 
prevalent idea, he would in all likelihood have been a more perfect 
poet, and a steadier, happier, better man. Even political excite- 
ment came too late for him. The great Revolutionary movement 
could not yet influence his earlier time of youth, to form him, as 
it almost certainly would have done, into the truest and most 
ardent of poets for the people — the only inspired voice to herald 
Radicalism wisely and gradually, or save its martyrs from being 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Su 

wasted ; and his gifts were destined to be scattered on innumerable 
stray objects, his fine ecstasy to be lavished without proportion to 
the cause, his fiery energy to be spent, squandered, and made a 
curiosity, with artificial revivals and refreshments of it that were 
yet more pitiable. 

The first book he read in private, besides the few school-manuals, 
was The Life of Hannibal, lent him by his young teacher ; the 
next, The History of Sir William Wallace, borrowed from a neigh- 
bouring blacksmith. Both " gave him more pleasure than any 
two books he ever read after ;" the first arousing martial enthu- 
siasm ;" the second " poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, 
which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in 
eternal rest." Addison soon became a favourite author ; so, among 
others, borrowed from various sources, did Pope, Homer in trans- 
lation, and Allan Ramsay. An odd volume of English history, a 
collection of Letters, Locke's celebrated Essay, Taylor On Original 
Sin, Tfie Ready Reckoner, Hervey 's Meditations among the Tombs, the 
Spectator, and a " Select Collection of English Songs — The Lark," 
were the chief works in that little medley which opened the world 
of letters to Robert Burns's early life. He made The Lark his 
vade mecum which " he pored over, driving his cart, or walking 
to labour — song by song, verse by verse — carefully noting (what 
he thought) the true, tender, or sublime, (as distinguished) from 
affectation and fustian." 

Then there was still another extra-academical teacher, most 
important of all. For the same blacksmith who lent the Life 
of Wallace possessed also a daughter of fourteen, who, coming 
to help the harvest of the Burnesses hard by, when the eldest son 
was " in my fifteenth autumn,'' became his partner on the corn- 
rig. Nelly Kilpatrick by name, a " bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass," 
unwittingly to herself initiated him, he has said, in that delicious 
passion he was to feel so often, and so to raise above its objects, and 
to have so dangerous a power of communicating. She sang a song, 
made by a country laird's son on one of his father's maids, and its 
air caught upon the tuneless ear which Mr Murdoch had found 
so dull ; for the voice was sweet among the banded reapers, with 
their sounding hooks, before the rustling fall of corn ; so that 
he saw no reason for not rhyming too, to the same tune, about a 
different subject ; and he strung his first song in honour of Nelly's 
charms. Afterwards he thought it " very puerile and silly ;" 
but his heart never failed on that account " to melt, and his 
blood to sally at the remembrance of the cause itself. To others, 
at times, he u was not a popular character," — a "rude and clownish 
solitaire," — obliged to share the hardship and toil incurred by 
the father for his family's sake ; doing the work of a man, though 
a boy in years ; his naturally robust frame having no generous 
diet to nourish it, his shoulders beginning to stoop already, & 



rlli LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

nervous disorder to affect his heart, the unsocial habits required 
by economy bringing moodiness on his brow. 

With the song and the harvest seem to have ended all care for 
the simple blacksmith's daughter ; and the embryo time itself 
was ended, with almost all the teaching he was to receive from 
other instructors than Nature and his own experience. In oppo- 
sition even to his father's wishes, however, " he gave his manners 
a brush" at a country dancing-school: the elder Burns was strong in 
his antipathies, and sometimes in his anger, against which the son* 
had nevertheless in this case persevered. This he deeply repented 
in later years ; afterwards tracing, to a sort of dislike to himself for 
that disobedience, a main cause of " the dissipation which marked 
my succeeding years." The vicinity to Ayr soon furnished a social 
attraction, or allowed of easy resort for juvenile debating. He 
spent the evenings in the way after his own heart ; adding, to 
rustic courtships of his own, a confidantship in " half the lovea 
of the parish of Tarbolton." " Early ingrained piety and virhio 
kept" him for several years, however, " within the line of inno- 
cence." " The great misfortune of my life was to want an aim, 
I had felt early some stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind 
gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave." 

The farm had been bo unproductive as to involve the whole 
family in distress ; and although William Burness succeeded in 
obtaining another, with better expectations of the result, at Loch- 
lea, near Tarbolton, yet the speculation turned out in the end still 
more disastrous. The change for Robert was at least advanta- 
geous, so far as regarded an alteration of local scenery, wilder and 
more marked in character; as well as new neighbours, and fresh 
opportunities of gaining knowledge, or comparing it with that of 
others in the same circumstances. During this period he acquired 
some of the elements of mathematics, and associated with a young 
men's club at Tarbolton, where he ultimately became a Free- 
Mason. His understanding and power of argument were deve- 
loped as vigorously as his fancy or sentiment, and by more rapid 
degrees. When roused to emotion on a subject, he could over- 
whelm an antagonist by a voluble force of language which aston- 
ished the hearers ; while at the same time, occasional effusions in 
verse were handed about, from his growing practice with the pen, 
and produced a considerable reputation in the district. Elegant 
letter-writing began to be a favourite branch of his leisure pur- 
suits — on the model of Queen Anne's reign — to regular corre- 
spondents whose replies he encouraged, that he might keep them 
beside copies of his own epistles, for careful comparison or improve- 
ment; and he " carried this whim so far, that though I had not 
three farthings' worth of businessan the world, yet almost every 
post brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding 
son of day-book and ledger." Thus life passed till his twenty* 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 



third year, which he calls an important era ; as at that time he 
tried actual business for himself as a flax-dresser, in partnership 
with another. The attempt failed, apparently from misconduct of 
his partner, followed by a fire in the shop at a New-Year carousal. 
Misfortune was pressing his father to the earth at Lochlea; and 
the death of the good old man, by a slow decline, after so many 
years of trouble without success, removed him, at all events, from 
the evil to come ; for the family affairs were now involved in utter 
ruin, so far as the Lochlea farm was concerned. 

On his father's death, Robert Burns joined his brother Gilbert 
in taking the farm of Mossgiel, mainly in order to provide for 
their widowed mother and the orphan family of five younger 
children. On this honourable enterprise Robert entered with 
resolute purpose to be wise ; reading agricultural books, calculat- 
ing crops, and attending markets. Mossgiel will ever be, indeed, 
illustrious ground to the classic memories of Scotland, intimately 
associated as it is with the most brilliant period of poetic develop- 
ment in him who there 

" Walked in glory and in joy, 
Following his plough upon the mountain.side. 

Vt Mossgiel were rapidly produced a large proportion of those 
genuine native strains by which his fame was earned, and in 
which is specially unfolded the most original trait of his genius — 
a feature almost new to poetry in general, that has especially 
influenced our literature through Wordsworth and his school. 
We mean, above all, its sympathetic tenderness for dumb life or 
obscure beauty in nature and the lower creatures, as sharers and 
companions in human emotion. Common enough now, and appa- 
rently easy, this is, of all Burns' characteristics, the most his own. 
It could scarce have occurred, even to him, but as the feeling of 
a peasant-farmer struggling against difficulty, holding his own 
plough, and occupying that doubtful place between master and 
servant. The elegy on " Poor Ma-ilie " alone, of all these memor- 
able productions referred to, had been previously composed at 
Lochlea. while his father lived. It was at Mossgiel he spared the 
" Field-Mouse," turned up the " Daisy," wrote the " Twa Dogs," salut- 
ed his " Auld Mare Maggie " in verse, and hit off various other 
kindred felicities in that track, from the comic or satirical to the 
deepest pathos. The vein lay unaffectedly deep in him, capable 
of the most unexpected application ; as when it became touch- 
ingly patriotic beside a weed in his refractory soil, the national 
thistle that helped to roughen his career : — 

" I turned the weeder-clips aside, 
And spared the symbol dear." 

Here also were written many of his best-known love songs and 
more elaborate attempts, accumulating beside him without defined 
purpose to use them further ; while other events took their course, 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 



bo as to complicate the family misfortunes with his own. Polemical 
divinity in the neighbourhood was embittered by contests between 
the more zealous Presbyterianism of old time, and the softened 
latitudinarian doctrine of that day. The clerical adherents of the 
latter party, often of good family if not of learned pursuits, were 
characterized by liberal opinions and by social good-breeding,with 
still more social habits. They partook of contemporary taste,with 
its supposed philosophical views and elegant manners. In Ayr- 
shire, however, this moderatism, as it has been called, was not 
content with negatives ; it put forth a counter-zeal of its own, in 
favour of what became known as the " New Light," a milder form 
of orthodoxy, combined with subdued continental rationalism. 
To this, at least in the theological branch of it, old Burness, the 
father of the poet, had so far leant, through a natural kindness at 
heart, as to embody it in a private doctrinal manual for domestic 
use : nor was it wonderful, otherwise, that Robert Burns, when 
beginning to gain reputation in argument as well as for a poetical 
turn, at once sided actively with the best-lettered party, thereby 
drawing prejudice against himself from the devouter one. To 
this step, with the consequent attacks and retaliations, might be 
traced not merely the after dislike of sincere piety to his works 
as a whole, but much of the unhappiness in his own later life and 
lot, which deepened that evangelical odium. In reality, being 
afterwards left behind by profound national tendencies, the " Mo- 
derates" proved but a bioken reed for his help, if not a positive 
injury to his self-development and final culture. A worldly light, 
shed in great measure from them and their dilettante circle, now 
obsolete, has too long deterred many readers, in all classes from 
acquaintance with his poems, or from assuming but a tacit and 
broken enjoyment of them. 

One secret, personal reason there was, no doubt, additional to all 
else, why he came to favour the less rigid and easier party in re- 
ligion ; unless their looser system of ethics had already exercised 
a previous influence upon him. New Light indulgence, perhaps, 
may have led earlier still to his estrangement from those who pro- 
fessed the morals of the New Testament ; so as to have directly in- 
clined him to the conduct, which would afterwards, no doubt, still 
more identify [him with the less pious school. While at Mossgiel, he 
had privately formed an irregular connection with a young woman 
named Jean Armour,daughter of a Mauchline mason; the marriage 
laws of Scotland having been, however, formally proceeded upon 
in writing between them. The consequences could no longer be 
concealed ; yet the father's decision was, to have the acknowledged 
contract made void, apparently because of Burns's doubtful pro- 
spects. Yielding to this stubborn resolution, he nevertheless felt 
the utmost distress ; and in that mood, despairing of all other 
expectations, gave ivp his part in the farm to his brother Gilbert, 



LIFE OP KOBfiKT BURNS. 



a coadjutor of steadier impulse and no ordinary practical intelli- 
gence. His intention was to leave his native country for tho 
West Indies, where fortune might be kinder than at home. Desti- 
tute of money for the passage, he was now advised to raise it by 
having his stock of verses printed for subscribers, who came for- 
ward so far as to ensure a sale of about 350 copies ; and the small 
volume of" Poems, chiefly Scottish," accordingly appeared at Kil- 
marnock in 1786, when the author was twenty-seven. His poverty 
had stood his friend for once. The success of the publication was so 
great as to prevent further, thoughts of exile ; and Burns remained 
to gain greater glory, and to err and suffer longer, till the close. 

From this stage of a strange story must not be omitted one 
singular episode belonging to Mossgiel, which shows its com- 
plex woof of light and shade more curiously yet, nay, with still ■ 
deeper significance. Before and along with his warm passion for 
Jean Armour, his future wife, — whose choice denotes the coarser 
grain in his composition, — he had carried on a gentler affection, 
evidently less intense at the time, for another young woman in 
even humbler rank, a maid-servant at a gentleman's house adja- 
cent — Mary Campbell, from the Celtic shire of Argyle. " Highland 
Mary" maybe regarded, from all that seems to have passed, as 
both the purer in her instincts and the truer in her love of the 
two ; for Jean Armour gave him up, despite of all that had 
happened, and, until then, the other appears but a casual affair, 
no further carried than his pledges to a rival might allow. When 
fixed on his voyage, he turned, in his desertion, to Mary Campbell, 
who agreed to share his forsaken and solitary fortunes. Probably 
knowing the substance of Jean Armour's case, indeed, bnt trusting 
him for her own part, when he was clear from other obligations, 
she yet clung to Highland faith and superstition. She stood first 
apart from him, beyond a running stream, over which they pledged 
their troth together, a Bible clasped in the hands of each, before 
she went home across the water to Campbelton, to tell her friends 
and prepare her marriage things ; but taking fever on the way, at 
Greenock, died unseen by him. In his monument at Brig of Doon, 
the two small volumes of that Bible are showr yet, in a glass case, 
with her name in his faded hand-writing, the sacred text grown 
fainter, while a tress of her golden hair lies pale yet unchanged 
beside it. Jean Armour soon became his lawful wife, faithful to 
him, commemorated in more than one melodious lyric ; tending 
his sad death-hours, and surviving him, the mother of his children. 
To her he continued the lower part of his regard, amidst many 
deviations : but if Mary had lived to marry him, it is possible that 
ber influence might have been better. At all events, she possessed 
his memory for ever, in a way more ethereal and like angelic 
pleading, than as a mere phantasm of sentiment. His purest sense 
of guileless love was in the song named from her ; and one evening 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 



after work, far off at Ellisland, when the exciseman's office had 
been added to his farming toil, when the uproarious contest for 
" the Whistle" had been decided and celebrated, the anniversary 
of that parting found his remembrance. Jean missed him at the 
supper-board, and came out to seek him about the harvest stacks. 
He lay upon a mass of straw, silently eying the evening-star, with 
thoughts he did not tell to her. It was to " Mary in Heaven" 
that his thoughts had tended, downcast, dissatisfied, full of anguish 
and gathered-up regret ; nor might the few natural tears shed by 
his wife, when she read them, be free from some secret bitterness. 
For the stamp of the women whom Burns knew, or had opportunity 
to love, had undoubtedly a main effect on his license and his 
fickleness. It was in that, as much as in anything, that the dis- 
advantage of his origin lay; seeing how low in rural Scotland, 
under that particular age, with its low unspiritual training, had 
sunk feminine self-respect and moral or intellectual culture. It 
may well be maintained, too, that the tendency of his poetry on 
the whole was, however unconsciously, to neutralize and cure such 
an evil, by elevating his fancied charmers, when he sang of them, 
at least : so that if he himself could not have Beatrices, Imogens, 
even Clarindas, to inspire awe amidst the admiration they attract- 
ed, he would yet teach his fellow-countrywomen afterwards to de- 
serve his praises, adding one charm to their list, whencesoever 
to be derived — the charm of virtue. 

Burns' introduction to society and its honours in Edinburgh, 
especially while superintending a second edition, Brought him 
fresh temptations ; from which, indeed, praise, curiosity, invita- 
tions, conviviality, and attempted patronage, did not prevent his 
emerging with renewed independence of spirit, and a sturdy disdain 
for artificial influences. Yet some natural inflation, as well as in- 
fection by the fashionable tone, with its relaxed private principles, 
was undoubtedly the result. Expectations of material benefit, 
such as some permament post of easy duties might have supplied, 
without demeaning or exposing him to moral danger, were excited 
merely to be unfulfilled. 

A second edition, with additions and improvements, was now 
issued with increased success ; from Edinburgh itself, with all its 
literary influence to back him. After paying all expenses of repub- 
lication, he found himself master of nearly £500 ; with which, hav- 
ing made a short tour southward to extend his knowledge of the 
country, he then took a farm at Ellrsland, near Dumfries ; besides 
advancing almost half his money to aid his brother Gilbert, still 
struggling at Mossgiel. He now took up house, as a married man, 
with a family already growing; and he set to for another endeavour 
in life, by no means ill-furnished for it, when conscious of fresh 
sources in his own mind and pen. Yet it may be easily conceived 
how the local circle at Dumfries were inclined to caress and asso* 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 



eiate with him, inducing the resumption of habits that had a faif 
chance of breaking off. if at all. A yet more unhappy chance was his 
want of confidence in those very gifts which had raised him ; leading 
to an application for the post of district exciseman, as a help to the 
farm. The two occupations were, in truth, essentially incom- 
patible ; either for pecuniary success in the one, or for rising, by full 
attention in the other, to a higher office. Field-labour was often 
left to servants alone, while Burns, as country gauger, too glad to 
rove about, or meet with incident and odd character, pursued the 
defaulters of revenue throughout Nithsdale. Even when solicited 
to aid in a " Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the 
¥0106/' projected by Mr George Thomson in Edinburgh, and 
consenting to the work, he disdained remuneration with the lofti- 
ness of one who would not sell his art ; afterwards contributing 
also to another similar publication, on terms of the same ill-judged 
superiority to prudence, which were congenial to the elegant 
literary notions of his day. 

Burns did now deliberately form resolutions against dissipation, 
with a matured consciousness of what was right and prudent. Yet 
intemperance of the kind to which middle age is mostprone became 
now increasingly the same bane to him, as during his youth had 
been recklessness of another kind. As in the one error there had 
been a germ of better action, seldom aided by corresponding 
strength in other persons ; so in this, his disposition to excess was 
neither a morbid craving nor a mere sensual indulgence. Society, 
as then constituted, made itself fatal to him, in greater proportion 
than to common men ; for in society — in human intercourse and 
the contact of wit or feeling — Burns found his chief delight. It 
grew to be the very stimulus to his flagging fancy, or to his lack 
of subject, when love had ceased to have the old charm; but it is 
worth noting, that he at least could not be contented with the 
gross nature of bacchanalian enjoyment, nor be dragged down to 
its vulgarities. In his prime he had a vigour and glow of intellect 
which almost transformed this indulgence into something better ; 
till, as it told on his own strength and purpose, its worst issue was 
to show him striving for the former light and the recollected force 
through its adventitious help. That, if time had remained to Burns, 
he must ultimately have sunk into the more pitiable condition of a 
sot, dependent even in solitude on such stimulants for any lucid in- 
terval, is undoubted; but the fire burned too fast within to delay 
his fate. At more than one drinking-bout for the prize of strongest 
toper, it wa3 dimly noticed by his yielding rivals that he ceased 
to drink in proportion as the dialogue ceased, and when the 
excitement of intercourse was at an end, the spell for him had 
gone. He sometimes departed like the scornful leader of inferior 
natures, who were unable to follow him longer ; and, once, with 
a clear recollection of everything, sitting by impartial, even ui* 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 



participating, he turned the whole into a wild but masterly paean 
of superiority to his associates or his tempters, a thing which 
would help to shame after-generations into common-sense. His 
power of self-control for an object seems thus to have been great. 
In the presence of a refined or dignified person he was able to 
refrain, showing himself equal to the most cultivated discourse ; 
and although his blame is in one aspect deeper, the more is it to 
be lamented that he had not companions nearer the level of his 
own mind. It must not be forgotten, neither, that the earlie? 
drinking-songs and anacreontics which were supplanted by his 
brilliant outbursts, like the old love-ditties superseded by his 
strains of living passion, had little before, but their music, to raise 
them above our contempt. He could still retire within himself, to 
endure sharper self-reproach, more bitter remorse for wasted or 
misdirected powers, than cool criticism can now advance against 
him ; and was not so forsaken by his better angel, but that, lifting 
an upward eye of confession and humiliation, he now deplored 
that taint of licence and unfaithfulness in the chief lyrical suc- 
cesses he had before accomplished ; for Dante himself never bowed 
more awfully before his sainted vision of one illustrious on earth, 
than when Burns groaned forth melodious agony to a mere 
memory of simple worth and faith, — in her who had best proved 
her love to. him, and least yielded up its virtue, whom he could 
think of as then before their God — the subject of those exquisite 
lines, then written, " To Mary in Heaven." 

Here, at Ellisland, he still threw off many of his most vigorous 
poems, among which the most remarkable is " Tarn o' Shanter," 
a work almost perfect of its kind, gathering within brief limits a 
whole mythology of native superstition, with a social and domestic 
moral, on no broader foundation than " the dull lie of a drunkard 
dotard." This was something truly unique in literature, with 
more than the Saxon household humour of Cowper's " John Gil- 
pin," and all the Scandinavian wildness of Burger's "Leonore," 
added to homely Scottish pawkiness. It was one quickly-shifting 
flight of the most genuine imagination, half-real, half-dreamlike, 
rendered artfully plausible by the drunken consciousness ; while, 
over-arched by the true poetic wisdom, which fails not, amidst its 
most hideous midnight conjuring, to let down a sky-gleam of pity 
and morality — 

" Ah! little kenned thy reverend grannie, 
That sark she coft for her wee Nanny, 
Wi' twa Scots punds ('twas a' her riches), 
Wad ever graced a dance o' witches !" 

Different, indeed, from the wild remembrances of the " Cottar's 
Saturday Night," with its humble goodness, somewhat heavily 
jind awkwardly rendered up, by a genius less matured at Mossgiel. 
Yet " Alloway's auld haunted kirk," near the paternal cottage, 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 



and the tributary monument at Brig of Doon, remains lifted 
beyond the seeming profanation, when no longer used for direct 
service, by its significance in the hazy brain of home-riding 
gossips, who may thus mount the earlier for a vivid thought of 

*' The lang Scots miles, 
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles, 
That lie between us and our hame," — 

with that distinct picture of the solitary sitter there— 

" Our sulky, sullen dame, 
Gathering her brows like gathering storm, 
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm." 

His gifts had, indeed, been what he once represented them, him- 
self, to be, — a Muse from above, higher-born and higher-tending 
than many things in his personal life : as has been more or less the 
case with all genius, in some form or another. It was at this period 
that he caught some influence from political ideas, then circulated 
by revolutionary zeal ; and although known before, and naturally 
enough, as a Jacobite, Burns quite as naturally partook now of 
the enthusiasm for liberty and rights of man. A fresh vein in his 
poetical instinct discovered itself as the result ; which has since 
been often put to use by later writers for the people, without giving 
such offence in higher quarters ; though to no one could it have 
been so genuine an effect of experience and temper, as with him, 
to express first and most forcibly a sense of manhood as the 
proudest title to respect, of self-reliance as the surest human 
strength, free speech and independent action as a common right. 
Toil and trial had enabled him at once to see beyond current 
excitement, not only to the dignity of labour, but to the truth 
that freedom is the best bond of classes : he could sing even then — 

" For a* that, and a' that, 

It's coming yet for a' that, 
That man to man, the warld o'er, 
Shall brothers be for a' that !" 

Yet in ordinary talk among his neighbours he uttered opinions 
which were thought dangerous ; and information being given to 
his superiors, the Board of Excise, an inquiry was instituted. 
The result was rather favourable on the whole, but not such as 
to reinstate him in the good opinion of the Commissioners ; interest 
was necessary even to retain him in his office ; and his promotion, 
being deferred, had to depend on future behaviour. The adequate 
and secure competency of a collectorship receded into remoter 
distance from his hopes, till something like irritability seems to 
have mingled with the gloom of undermined health and prolonged 
struggle. 

Little has been said here of his continued fondness for letter- 
writing, enhanced by correspondence with persons in higher sta- 
tion ; especially with several of those superior women, ladies by 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 



birth and in education, whom his maturer standard of female ex- 
cellence prompted him to celebrate or address. Friendship began 
to substitute itself, perhaps, for a warmer feeling in his heart ; and 
his numerous letters are full of this calmer, more satisfactory, anu 
permanent enjoyment. In these are to be found, however, the de- 
tached traces of his singular relation to " Clarinda," Mrs M'Lehose, 
a woman of considerable intellect, and at the same time much sen- 
sibility ; which bears an interest half romantic, partly Platonic, as 
connected with one who might possibly have been a fit partner for the 
poet. Known to him before his final union to Jean Armour, " Cla- 
rinda" then corresponded with him in an ardent style, which yet did 
not prevent his becoming the husband of the former. The letters 
were of that high-flown character, to a great extent, which " some- 
times does not so much reveal passion as mask indifference ;" and 
they were afterwards occasionally added to. The truth may have 
been, that in such directions did Burns attempt to compensate to 
his superior nature for the disadvantage it had suffered by a posi- 
tion in life, such as society could never allow him to overpass. 
His epistolary compositions have the mark, so seldom visible in his 
genuine addresses, of being a work of elaboration and calculated 
effect • the styles of other writers, the circumstances of a dif- 
ferent class, are too often before him in producing them ; and he 
had there greater room for the would-be elegances, the smart affec- 
tations, the supposed concealments of pedantry or rusticity, which 
a poet, whose glory was in his truth to experience and nature, 
could never hide upon a drawing*room carpet, when neither doing 
his appointed work nor following his chosen art. Nevertheless, 
they display great " merit as the effusions of a very uncommon 
mind, enriched with knowledge far beyond what could have been 
reasonably expected in his situation ; for he appears to have cul- 
tivated English prose with caie, and certainly wrote it with a 
sprightly fluency." 

His career had no further stage to develop. In the month of 
June, 1796, he had to try the effects of sea-bathing on the coast 
near Dumfries ; a remedy which at first seemed to relieve a rheu- 
matic affection of the limbs. After his return home, however, a 
fever succeeded, attended with delirium and debility ; under the 
effects of which, sedulously tended by Mrs Burns, he expired on 
the 21st July, in his thirty-eighth year. The funeral was accom- 
panied with military honours, on the ground of loyal connection 
with a local volunteer force, to the churchyard of Dumfries, where 
his remains were interred. He left a widow and four sons, for whose 
benefit subscriptions were required at the time, and were extended 
to England ; although the subsequent profits of his own works, with 
the excellent Life by Dr Currie, assisted the surviving members of 
his family to ultimate independence and professional honour. 



CONTENTS. 



Some alterations have been made in oojectionable phrases in the Foetry t 
they are put in small capitals. 

PAGB 

Life of Burns ...... iii 

Contents ..*.... xvii 

Index of First Lines . xxix 



POEMS. 

The Cotter's Saturday Night 

A Fragment — " My heart melts" 

Winter — A Dirge 

A Prayer, written under the Pressure of Violent Anguish 

The Death and Dying Words of Poor Maillie 

Poor Maillie's Elegy . 

A Prayer in the Prospect of Death . 

Stanzas on the same occasion 

" Oh why should I repine" 

" Oh leave novels, ye Mauchline belles" 

The First Psalm 

The First Six Verses of the Ninetieth Psalm 

Epistle to John Rankine 

Elegy on the Death of Robert Ruisseaux 

The Belles of Mauchline 

An Epistle to Davie — A Brother Poet 

Death and Dr Hornbook 

First Epistle to J. Lapraik 

Second Epistle to J. Lapraik 

Third Epistle to John Lapraik 

Epistle to John Goudie of Kilmarnock 

The Twa Herds, or the Holy Tulzie . 

To William Simpson, Ochiltree 

Epistle to the Rev. John M'Math 

To a Mouse .... 

Hallowe'en .... 

Second Epistle to Davie . • 

Man was made to Mourn — A Dirge 

Address to the Deil . . , 



3 

7 
7 
8 
8 
10 
11 
11 
12 
12 
12 
13 
13 
14 
15 
15 
18 
22 
24 
33 
27 
27 
29 
35 
37 
38 
44 
45 
17 



XViii CONTENTS. 




PAGE 


To Janies Smith ..... 


49 


The Vision ...... 


53 


Scotch Drink ...... 


. 61 


The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer 


, 63 


The Auld Farmer's Salutation to his Mare Maggie 


67 


The Twa Dogs— A Tale .... 


69 


To a Louse ...... 


74 


An Address to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly Righteous 


. 76 


The Inventory ..... 


. 77 


" Thou nattering mark of friendship kind" . 


. 78 


To a Mountain Daisy .... 


. 78 


Lament — " Oh thou pale orb" 


. 80 


Despondency— An Ode .... 


. 81 


To Ruin . . . . . ' . 


83 


To Gavin Hamilton ..... 


. 83 


Epistle to a Young Friend .... 


. 84 


A Dream ...... 


86 


On a Scotch Bard, gone to the West Indies 


. 89 


A Bard's Epitaph ... . . . 


. 90 


A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. 


. 91 


To Mr M'Kenzie ..... 


93 


The Farewell ...... 


. 94 


Lines 'written on a Bank .Note 


94 


Written on a Copy of the Poems presented to an old Sweet- 




heart . .... 


. 95 


Verses written under Violent Grief . 


95 


The Calf — To the Rev. James Steven 


95 


Willie Chalmers ..... 


96 


Tarn Samson's Elegy .... 


97 


To Mr M'Adam of Craigengillan 


99 


Verses left in the Room where he Slept 


100 


The Brigs of Ayr ..... 


100 


Lines on meeting with Basil Lord Daer 


105 


Epistle to Major Logan . ... 


106 


Address to Edinburgh 


108 


On Charles Edward's Birth Day .... 


109 


To Miss Logan, with Beattie's Poems 


110 


Burns to the Guidwife of Wauchope House 


110 


On Willie Smellie 


112 


On Willie Dunbar ..... 


112 


To Mrs David Wilson ..... 


112 


Verses under the Portrait of Fergusson 


113 


To a Haggis . . . 


113 


Extempore in the Court of Session .... 


114 


Prologue, spoken by Mr Woods on his Benefit Night 


114 


Willie's Awa . . 


115 



CONTENTS. 



xix 



PAGJ 

To Simon Gray . . . . . .117 

Composed on leaving a Place in the Highlands, where he 

had been kindly entertained . . . . 117 

On reading in a Newspaper tne death of John M'Leod, Esq. 117 
On the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair . . .118 

To Miss Ferrier, enclosing Elegy on Sir J. H. Blair . 119 

Lines on Stirling ...... 120 

Written over the Chimney-piece in the Inn at Kenmore . 120 
The Humble Petition of Bruar Water . . .121 

Written while standing by the Fall of Fyers . . 123 

Castle Gordon 123 

On Scaring some Water-Fowl in Loch Turit . . 124 

To Miss Cruikshank, a very young Lady . . . 124 

Address to Mr William Tytler . . . .125 

Elegy on the Death of Lord President Dundas . . 12$ 

Elphinstone's Translation of Martial's Epigrams . . 127 

A Farewell to Clarinda ..... 127 

To Clarinda, with a Present of a Pair of Drinking-Glasses 127 
Epistle to Hugh Parker . . . . .128 

The Fete Champetre . . . . .129 

First Epistle to Mr Graham of Fintry . . .130 

Second Epistle to Mr Graham of Fintry . . .132 

Third Epistle to Mr Graham of Fintry . . .134 

Fourth Epistle to Mr Graham of Fintry . . .169 

Lamentation for the Death of Mrs Fergusson's Son . 136 

Lines written in Friars' Carse Hermitage . . 136 

Elegy on the year 1788 . . . . .138 

A Sketch — " A little, upright, pert" . . . 138 

Extempore to Captain Riddell .... 139 

Ode— Sacred to the Memory of Mrs Oswald . .139 

To John Taylor 140 

Sketch, inscribed to Charles James Fox . . . 140 

Delia .141 

On seeing a Wounded Hare limp by me . . 141 

Letter to James Tennant of Glenconner . . 142 

Address to the Toothache ..... 143 
The Kirk's Alarm . . . . . .144 

The Whistle > 146 

To Mary in Heaven . . . . . 147 

To Dr Blacklock . 148 

On Captain Grose's Peregrinations through Scotland . 149 

The Five Carlins . . . . . .150 

Sketch— New Year's Day, 1790 . . . .152 

Prologue, spoken at the Theatre, Dumfries, 1790 . . 153 

Prologue for Mrs Sutherland's Benefit Night, Dumfries . 154 
Peg Nicholson ..... . 155 



CONTENTS. 



PAGB 

Written to a Gentleman who had sent the Poet a Newspaper 156 
On Captain Matthew Henderson .... 156 

Tain O'Shanter . . . . . .159 

Stanzas on the Birth of a Posthumous Child . . 163 

Elegy on the late Miss Burnett of Monboddo . . 164 

Lament of Mary Queen of Scots on the approach of Spring 165 
Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn . . 166 

Lines sent to Sir John Whitefoord, Bart. . . . 168 

Address to the Shade of Thomson .... 168 

To Mr Maxwell of Terraughty on his Birth Day . . 168 

" Sweet Sensibility, how charming" .... 169 

The Rights of Women 170 

To Miss Fontenelle, on seeing her in a favourite character 171 
Sonnet, written on the Birthday of the Author . .171 

Epitaph on a Lap-Bog ..... 171 

Impromptu on Mrs Riddell's Birthday . . . 171 

Monody on a Lady famed for her Caprice . . . 172 

Epistle from Esopus to Maria .... 172 

A Vision — " As I stood by yon roofless tower" . .174 

Sonnet on the death of Glenriddel .... 175 
" Thee Caledonia, thy wild heaths among" . . . 175 

Verses to Miss Graham of Fintry . . . .175 

The Tree of Liberty 176 

To Dr Maxwell, on Miss Jessie Staig's recovery . . 178 

To Chloris . 178 

Toast for the 12th of April • . . . .178 

"Inscription for an Altar to Independence . . . 179 

Verses on the Destruction of the Woods near Drumlanrig . 179 
Address, spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her Benefit Night, 1795 180 
To Collector Mitchell ...... 181 

The Dean of Faculty— a Ballad . . . .182 

The Hermit 182 

The Vowels— a Tale . . . . . .184 

On Pastoral Poetry ...... 184 

To a Kiss .186 

Lament written when the Poet was about to leave Scotland 186 
An Extempore Effusion on being appointed to the Excise . 186 
To my Bed . . . . . . . 187 

Lines sent to a Gentleman whom he had offended . . 187 

The Ruined Maid's Lament ..... 187 

On the Duke of Queensberry ..... 188 

On the Death of a Favourite Child . . . .188 

Lines written in a Lady's Pocket-Book • . . 189 

Fragment — " The black-headed eagle" . . . 1 89 

Written on a Pane of Glass, on a National Thanksgiving . 189 
The True Loyal Natives . . . . .189 



CONTENTS. 



xxi 



On the Author's Father . . . . .190 

Epitaph on the Poet's Daughter .... 190 

" Though Fickle Fortune" . . • . .190 

To the Owl ....... 190 

To the Ruins of Lincluden Abbey .... 191 

Verses addressed to J. Rankine . . . . 192 

A Winter Night 193 

Grace before Meat — " Soma hae meat" . . . 195 

" O Thou, who kindly dost provide" .... 195 

«' O Thou, in whom we live and move" . . . 195 

Willie Stewart . . ... . .195 

Verses to John M'Murdo, Esq. . . ... 195 

To Mis3 Jessy Lewars ..... 196 

On seeing Mrs Kemble in Yarico . . . .196 

To Mr Syme, with a present of a dozen of porter . . 196 

To the Same, on being pressed to stay and drink more . 196 
To the Same, declining an invitation to join a dinner-party 197 
On John Dove, Innkeeper, Mauchline . . .197 

On Miss Lewars 5 Indisposition .... 197 

Miss Lewars Recovered a Little .... 197 

Epitaph for Robert Aiken, Esq. .... 197 

On Wee Johnny 198 

On the Death of a Henpecked Country Squire . . 198 

Tarn the Chapman ...... 198 

On Miss J. Scott of Ayr . . . . .198 

On a Worm-eaten Edition of Shakspeare in a Nobleman's 

Library . . . . . . .198- 

On Mr W. Cruikshank of the High School, Edinburgh . 199 
On Miss Burns . . . . . .199 

Written in a Country Church .... 199 

On a Friend . . . . . . .199 

Howlet-Face ....... 199 

The Solemn League and Covenant .... 200 

On a certain Parson's Looks ..... 200 

On Mr M'Murdo, inscribed on a Pane of Glass in his House 200 
Written on a Window of the Globe Tavern, Dumfries . 200 

Excisemen Universal ...... 200 

On a Grotto in Friars' Carse Grounds . , . 201 

On a Noted Coxcomb . . . . . .201 

On a Person Boring a Company with References to Great 

People ,201 

On Seeing the beautiful Seat of the Earl of Galloway . 201 
On the Same . . . . , . .201 

On the Same, on being Threatened with his Resentment . 202 
To Miss Jessy Lewars . . . . . 202 

Toast written on a Crystal Goblet .... 202 



CONTENTS. 



SONGS. 



Handsome Nell 

I Dreamed I Lay 

My Nannie, O 

Tibbie, I Hae Seen the Day 

On Cessnoch Banks . 

My Father was a Farmer 

John Barleycorn — A Ballad 

Mary Morrison 

The Rigs o' Barley 

Montgomery's Peggy . 

Song Composed in August 

Green Grows the Rashes 

The Cure for all Care 

Fragment — w One night as I did wander ' 

Robin — " There was a lad was born in Kyle ' 

A Fragment — « When first I came to Stewart Kyle ' 

Luckless Fortune 

The Braes o' Ballochmyle 

I am a Son of Mars . 

John Highlandman 

I am a Fiddler 

I've Ta'en the Gold . 

I am a Bard . 

Young Peggy . 

" Again rejoicing Nature sees " 

The Highland Lassie . 

Mary — " Powers celestial !" . 

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary 

Eliza — " From thee, Eliza " . 

Though Cruel Fate . 

Farewell to the Brethren of St James's Lodge, Tarbolton 

The Sons of Old Killie 

The Bonnie Lass o' Ballochmyle 

The Gloomy Night is Gathering Fast 

The American War . 

The Birks of Aberfeldy 

Blithe was She 

The Rose-Bud ... 

Braving Angry Winter's Storms . 

My Peggy's Face ... 

On a Young Lady 

Macpherson's Farewell 

Stay my Charmer 

Strathallan's Lament • 



CONTENTS. XXia 




PAGE 


The Young Highland Rover . 


. 230 


Raving Winds Around her Blowing 


, 231 


Musing on the Roaring Ocean 


.231 


Bonnie Peggy Alison . 


. 232 


I Love my Jean 


. 232 


Oh were I on Parnassus' Hill 


232 


The Day Returns 


. 233 


The Lazy Mist 


. 233 


I Hae a Penny to Spend 


. 234 


Auld Lang Syne 


. 234 


My Bonnie Mary . . 


. 235 


Willie Brewed a Peck o' Maut 


... 235 


The Laddies by the Banks o' Nith 


. 236 


The Blue-Eyed Lassie 


. 236 


Song — " When first I saw fair Jeanie 


*sface" . . 237 


My Lovely Nancy 


. 237 


Tibbie Dunbar 


. 238 


The Gardener wi' his Paidle . 


. 238 


Dainty Davie .... 


: . .238 


Highland Harry 


. 239 


Bonnie Ann 


. 239 


John Anderson my Jo 


. 240 


The Battle of Sheriff Muir . 


. 240 


Blooming Nelly 


. 241 


My Heart's in the Highlands 


. 242 


The Banks of Nith . 


. . .243 


My Heart is a Breaking, dear Tittie 


. 243 


There'll Never be Peace till Jamie C( 


>mes Hame . . 244 


Lovely Davies * . 


. 244 


The Bonnie Wee Thing 


. 245 


Song of Death 


. 245 


Song — m Ae fond kiss, and then we se 


ver" . . .246 


Song — " Ance mair I hail thee, thou 


gloomy December" . 246 


May, thy Morn 


. 247 


My Nannie's Awa 


. 247 


Bonnie Lesley 


. 248 


Cragieburn Wood 


. 248 


Frae the Friends and Land I Love . 


. 249 


Meikle Thinks my Love 


. 249 


What Can a Young Lassie 


, 249 


How Can I be Blithe and Glad 


. 250 


I do Confess Thou art sae Fair 


. 250 


Yon Wild Mossy Mountains . 


. 251 


for Ane-and-Twenty, Tarn . 


. 251 


Bess and her Spinning- Wheel 


. 252 


Nithsdale's Welcome Hame . , 


, 252 



*xlv 



ONTENTS. 



Country Lassie 

Fair Eliza 

Luve will Venture in 

The Banks of Doon , 

"Willie Wastle . 

Flow Gently, Sweet Afton 

The Smiling Spring . 

The Gallant Weaver . 

She's Fair and Fause ■ 

My Wife's a Winsome Wee Thing 

Highland Mary 

My ain Kind Dearie . 

Auld Rob Morris 

Duncan Gray . • 

Here's a Health to them that's Awa 3 

O Poortith Cauld 

Gala Water 

Lord Gregory . 

Open the Door to Me, O 

Young Jessie . • 

The Soldier's Return . 

Wandering Willie 

Meg o' the Mill 

Address to Dumourier 

Farewell thou Stream that Winding Flows 

Blithe hae I been on yon Hill 

Logan Braes . 

Oh were my Love yon Lilac Fair 

Bonnie Jean 

Phillis the Fair 

Had I a Cave . 

By Allan Stream I Chanced to Rove 

Whistle, and I'll Come to you, my Lad 

Adown Winding Nith I did Wander 

Come let me Take Thee to my Breast 

Bruce to his Men at Bannockburn 

Behold the Hour 

Down the Burn, Davie 

Thou hast Left me Ever 

Where are the Joys 

Deluded Swain, the Pleasure 

My Spouse Nancy 

The Lovely Lass of Inverness 

A Red, Red Rose 

Out over the Forth 

Ijouis what reck I by thee 



CONTENTS. 



XXV 



Somebody—" My heart is sair" 

Wilt Thou be my Dearie • 

Lovely Polly Stewart . • 

Could aught of Song . 

Wae is my Heart 

Here's to thy Health, my Bonnie Ls§s 

Anna thy Charms . . 

My Lady's Dink 

Jockey's Taen the Parting Kiss 

Lay thy Loof in mine, Lass 

O Mally's Meek, Mally's Sweet 

The Banks of Cree 

On the Seas and Far Away , 

Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes 

„ „ Another version 

She Says she Loes me Best of a' 
Saw ye my Phely ? 

How Long and Dreary is the Night . 
Let not Woman e'er Complain 
The Lover's Morning Salute to his Mistress 
The Auld Man 

My Chloris, Mark how Green the Groves 
[t was the Charming Month of May . 
Lassie wi' the Lint-white Locks 
Philly and Willy 
Contented wi' Little . 
Canst thou Leave me thus, my Katy 
For a' That, and a' That 
O Lassie, art thou Sleeping yet ? 
Ballads on Mr Heron's election, 1795 — 

Ballad First 

Ballad Second 

Ballad Third 

Ballad Fourth . 
The Dumfries Volunteers 
Oh W r at ye Wha's in Yon Town 
Address to the Woodlark 
On Chloris being ill . 
Their Groves o' Sweet Myrtle 
'Twas na her Bonnie Blue E'e was my Ruin 
How Cruel are the Parents . 
Mark Yonder Pomp of Costly Fashion 
Forlorn, my Love, no Comfort Dear . 
Last May a Braw Wooer • . 

Fragment — " Why, why tell thy lover m 
This is no my Ain Lassie e 



PAGE 

277 
278 
278 
279 
279 
279 
280 
280 
281 
281 
281 
282 
282 
283 
284 
284 
285 
285 
286 
286 
287 
287 
288 
288 
289 
290 
290 
291 
292 

293 
294 
296 
297 
299 
299 
300 
801 
301 
301 
302 
302 
303 
303 
304 
304 



rxvi 



CONTENTS. 



Now Spring has Clad . 

O Bonnie was Yon Rosy Brier 

Hey for a Lass wi' a Tocher . 

Jessy — " Here's a health " 

Oh Wert thou in the Cauld Blast 

Fairest Maid on Devon Banks 

Caledonia-—" There was once a day 

O Wha is she that Loes me 

Where Did you Get it 

1 am my Mammy's ae Bairn 
Up in the Morning Early 
There was a Lass 
The Ploughman 
My Hoggie 

Simmer's a Pleasant Time 
First when Maggie was my C&re 
Jamie, Come Try Me 
Awa, Whigs Awa 
Whare Hae ye Been . 
For a' That, and a' That 
Young Jockey . 
The Tither Morn 
As I was a Wandering 
The Weary Pund o' Tow 
Gane is the Day 
It is na, Jean, thy Bonnie Face 
My Collier Laddie 
Ye Jacobites by Name. 
Lady Mary Ann 
Kenmure's on and Awa 
Such a Parcel of Rogues in a 
The Carles of Dysart . 
The Slave's Lament . 
Coming Through the Rye 
Young Jamie, Pride of a' the 
The Lass of Ecclefechan 
The Cardin' o't 
The Lass that Made the Bed to Me 
The Highland Laddie . 
Sae far Awa . 
I'll Aye Ca' in by Yon Town 
Bannocks o' Barley 
It was a' for our Rightful King 
The Highland Widow's Lament 
O Steer Her up 
Wee Willie Gray 



Nation 



Plain 



CONTENTS. 


xxvii 






PAGE 


aye ray Wife she Dang me . 




. 327 


Guid Ale Comes 


, , 


. 327 


Robin Shure ir. Hairst 


, 


. 327 


Sweetest May . 


• 


. 328 


There was a Bonnie Lass 


, , 


. 328 


Crowdie — " that I had never been married " 


. 323 


The Blude-red Rose at Yule may 


Blaw 


. 329 


Cassillis' Banks 


, . 


. 329 


Hunting Song 


. 


. 330 


Hey the Dusty Miller 


• - 


. 330 


Her Flowing Locks 


. 


. 330 


Rattlin', Roarin', "Willie 


, 


, 331 


The Captain's Lady . 


. 


. 331 


My Love She's but a Lassie yet 


■ 


. 332 


Eppie Adair . 


* 


. 332 


There's a Youth in this City . 


. 


. 332 


Theniel Menzies' Bonnie Mary 


• 


. 333 


Come Boat me o'er to Charlie 


. 


. 333 


On a Ploughman 


• • « 


. 334 


Evan Banks . 




. 334 


Bonnie Peg 


• 


. 335 


Here's his Health in Water . 


• * 


. 335 


Ahj Chloris 


. t 


. 335 


Song — In the character of a Rukied Farmer 


. 336 


Letters 


• . « 


. 537 


Burns' Autobiography 


* 


. 633 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



Page 
A caold, cauld day December 199 
Accept the gift a Mend sincere 95 
Admiring Nature . . 120 
Again.the silent wheels of time 110 
A guid New-Year . . 67 

A little, upright, pert, tart . 138 
All hail ! inexorable lord ! . 83 

Among the heathy hills . 123 
An honest man here lies at rest 199 
As I stood by yon roofless tower 174 
As I came by Crochallan . 112 
As Mailie and her lambs . 8 

As on the banks . . . 179 
As Tarn the Chapman on a day 198 
Auld comrade dear . 142 

Anld chuckle Reekie . . 115 
A' ye who Live by soups o' drink 89 
Adieu! a heart-warm fond adieu! 221 
Adown winding Nith . . 272 
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever 246 
Again rejoicing nature sees 218 
A Highland lad my love was born 215 
Ah, Chloris since it may na' be 335 
Although my bed . . 211 
Although thou maun never 307 
Altho' my back be at the wa' 335 
Ance mair I hail thee . 246 

And oh ! my Eppie . . 332 
&nna, thy charms my bosom fire 280 
A rose-bud by my early walk 227 
As down the burn . . 274 
As I came in by our gate end 335 
As I was wandering . .. 315 
As I was a wand'ring . . 334 
Awa' wi' your witchcraft . 306 

Beauteous rose-bud . . 124 
Blest be M l Murdo . . 200 
But rarely seen . . . 197 
Bannocks o' bear meal . 324 
Behold the hour the boat arrive 274 
Behind yon hills ... 204 
Blithe hae I been on yon hill 267 
Bonnie wee thing . . 245 
But lately seen in gladsome green 287 
Bv Auchtertyre grows the aik 226 
By yon castle wa' . . 244 
By Allan stream I chanced to rove 271 
Cease, ye prudes . . . 199 
Clarinda, mistress of my soul 127 
Canst thou leave me thus . 290 
Cauld blaws the wind . 310 

Ca' the ewes to the knowes 283 
„ another version . . 284 



Contented wi' little 
Could aught of song . 
Come let me take thee 
Coming through the rye 
Come boat me o'er 



Page 
290 
279 
273 
321 
333 



Dear Smith, the sle'est . 49 

Dear Simon Gray, the other day 117 
Dire was the hate at old Harlaw 182 
Dweller in yon dungeon dark 139 
Deluded swain, the pleasure 275 
Does haughty Gaul . . 299 
Duncan Gray cam' here to woo 260 
Edina ! Scotia's darling seat 108 
Expect na' sir in this narration 91 
Farewell old Scotia's bleak 94 

False flatterer, hope, away 109 

Fair fa' your honest sonsie face 113 
Fair empress of the poet's soul 127 
Fate gave the word . . 136 
Fair the face of orient day . 141 
Fill me with the rosy wine 202 

Fintry, my stay in wordly strife 132 
For lords or kings I dinna niourn 138 
From those drear solitudes 172 

Friend of the poet, tried and leal 181 
Friday first's the day appointed 93 
Farewell to a' our Scottish fame 3L9 
Farewell, ye dungeons dark 229 
Farewell, thou fair day . 245 
Farewell, thou stream . 267 
Fairest maid on Devon banks 308 
First when Maggy was my care 313 
Flow gently, sweet Afton . 255 
Forlorn my love, no comfort near 303 
Frae the friends and land I love 249 
From thee, Eliza, I must go 221 
Fy, let us a' to Kircudbright 294 
Great is thy power . .47 
Grant me, indulgent Heaven 189 
Guid mornin' to your Majesty 86 
Guid speed, and furder to you 33 
Gane is the day . . . 316 
Gat ye me, O gat ye me . 322 
Go fetch to me a pint o' wine 235 
Ha ! where ye gaun . . 74 
Has auld Kilmarnock . 97 

Hail, thairm-inspirin' . 106 

Hail poesie ! thou Nymph . 184 
Hear, land o' cakes . . 149 
He's gane ! he's gane . . 156 
Health to Maxwell's veteran chief 168 
Here, where the Scottish Muse 175 



INDEX. 



Page 

Heard ye o' the tree o' France 176 

He clenched his pamphlets 114 

Here Stuarts once in triumph 120 
Here lies a rose, a budding rose 190 

Here lies Johnny Pigeon . 197 

Honest "Will to heaven is gane 199 
How daur ye ca'me h owlet-faced 199 

How Wisdom and Folly meet 140 

How cold is that bosom . 172 

How shall I sing . . . 188 

Humid seal of soft affections 18G 

Had I a cave on some wild . 271 

Here's a health to them . 261 

Here awa 1 , there awa' 266 

Here is the glen . . 282 

Here's to thy health . . 279 

Hey the dusty miUer . . 330 

Her flowing locks . . 330 

How pleasant the hanks . 228 
How can my poor heart he glad 282 
How long and dreary is the night 285 

How cruel are the parents 302 

Husband, husband cease . 275 

I am a keeper of the law . 192 

I call no goddess to inspire 169 
I gat your letter, winsome "Willie 29 

I hold it, sir, my bounden duty 83 

I lang hae thought . . 84 

I mind it weel in early date 110 

I'm three times doubly o'er 44 

In this strange land . 128 

Inhuman man I . . 141 

In Mauchline there dwells 15 

In wood and wild . . 171 

Instead of a song, boys . 178 

I sing of a whistle . . 146 

Is there a whim-inspired fool 90 

I've sent you here . . 13 

I am a son of Mars . . 215 

I am a bard of no regard . 217 

I am my mammy's ae bairn 310 

I eoft a stane o' haslock woo' 322 

I do confess thou art sae fair 250 

I dreamed I lay where flowers 204 

I gaed up to Dunse . . 327 

I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen 236 

I hae a penny to spend . 234 

Ilk care and fear ... 232 

I'll aye ca' in by yon town . 324 

In simmer when the hay . 253 

In coming by the Brig o' Dye 333 

Is there for honest poverty 291 

I see a form, I see a face . 305 

It is na' Jean, thy bonnie face 317 

It was in sweet Senegal 320 

It was a' for our righfu' king 325 

It was the eharming month' 288 

It was upon a Lammas night 210 

Jamie, come try me . 313 

John Anderson, my jo, John 240 

Jockey's taen the parting kiss 281 
Kemble, thou cur'st my unbelief 196 



Tage 
Kind Sir, I've read your paper 156 
Know thou, O stranger . 197 
Late crippled of an arm . 134 
Let other poets raise a fracas 61 
Life ne'er exulted . . 164 
Light lay the earth . . 201 
Lone on the bleaky hills . 126 
Last May, a braw wooer . 303 
Let not woman e'er complain 286 
Let me ryke up to dightthat tear 216 
Loud blaw the frosty breezes 230 
Louis, what reck I by thee . 277 
Long, long the night . . 301 
Maxwell, if merit here you crave 178 
My blessings on ye, honest wife 112 
My lord, I know your noble ear 121 
My ban upon thy venom'd stang 143 
My loved, my honoured . 1 

My heart melts . . 7 

Mark yonder pomp . 302 

Musing on the roaring ocean 231 
My Peggy's face ... 228 
My love she's but a lassie yet 332 
My lady's dink, my lady's drest 2S0 
My father was a farmer . 207 
My bonny lass I work in brass 217 
My Harry was a gallant gay 239 
My heart's in the Highlands 242 
My heart is a-breaking . 243 
My heart is sair, I dare na' tell 277 
My Chloris, mark how green 287 
Nae heathen name 119 

K o 3ong nor dance . 153 

Now Nature hangs her mantle 165 
No more ye warblers of the wood 175 
No more of your titled . 20] 
No more of your guests . 197 
No Stewart art thou, Galloway 201 
Now Robin lies in his last lair 14 
Nae gentle dames . . 219 
Now rosy May . . 238 

Now in Her green mantle . 247 
Now nature deeds the flowerylea 288 
Now spring has clad the groves 305 
Now bank and brae are claith'd 329 
Now westlin' winds * 211 

Now simmer blinks . . 226 
No churchman am I . . 212 
O'er the mist-shrouded cliffs 186 
Oh thou dread Power . . 100 
Oh thou whom poesy abhors 127 
Oh wha will to St Stephen's house 129 
Oh meikle do I rue fause love 187 
Oh sweet be thy sleep . 188 

Oh ye whose cheek the tear 190 
Oh had each Scot . . 198 
Oh thou Great Being I . 8 

Oh why should I repine, 12 

Oh leave novels . . 12 

Oh thou unknown, Almighty 11 
Oh Thou, the first, the greatest 13 
Oh Goudie ! terror of the Whigs 27 



Papfe 
Oh a' ye pious godly flocks 27 

Oh ye Vha are sae guid yonrsel' 76 
Oh thou pale orb . . 80 

Oh could I give thee . . 195 
Oh had the malt thy strength 196 
Did Winter, with his frostybeard 171 
Once fondly loved . . 95 

One Queen Artemisia . 198 

Oppressed with grief . . 81 

Orthodox, orthodox . . 144 
Thou, who kindly dost provide 195 
Thou, in whom we live . 195 
a' the arts the wind can blaw 232 
bonnie was yon rosy brier 306 
cam ye here the fight to shun 240 
aye my wife she dang me 327 
guid ale comes . . 327 

Oh I am come to thelowcountrie 325 
Oh Lady Mary Ann . . 318 
Oh once I loved a bonnie lass 203 
Oh wat ye wka's in yon town 299 
Oh rattlin', roarin', Willie . 331 
Oh Tibbie, I hae seen the day 205 
Oh, Mary, at thy window be 209 
Oh raging fortune's withering 214 
Oh were I on Parnassus' hill 232 
O how shall I unskilfu' try 244 

O how can I be blithe and glad 250 
O Kenniure's on. andawa, Willie 319 
O ken ye what Meg o' the Mill 266 
O Logan sweetly didst thou glide 268 
O lassie art thou sleeping yet 292 
O leeze me on my spinning 252 
O luve will venture in . 254 
O lovely Polly Stewart 278 

O lay thy loot" in mine, lass 281 
O Mally's meek, Mally's sweet 281 
O meikle thinks my luve . 249 
O May, thy morn . . 247 
O mirk, mirk . . . 263 
O my luve's like a red, red rose 277 
On a bank of flowers . . 241 
On Cessnock Banks . . 206 
One night as I did wander 213 

O open the door 263 

O poortith cauld . . . 262 
O Philly, happy be that day 289 
O stay, sweet warbling woodlark 300 
O saw ye bonnie Lesley . 248 
O steer her up, andhaudhergaun 326 
O saw ye my dear, my Phely 285 
O sad and heavy should I part 324 
O that I had ne'er been married 328 
Our thrissles flourished . 313 
Out over the Forth . . 277 
O were my love yon lilac fair 268 
O whistle, and I'll come to ye 271 
O wer't thou in the cauld blast 307 
O wha is she that loe's me 309 

O whare did you get that . 310 
O wilt thou go wi' me . 238 
O Willie brewed a peck o' maut 235 
Peg Nicholson , . , 155 



Powers celestial ! 



220 



Right sir ! your text I'll prove 95 
Revered defender . . 125 
Paving winds around her . 231 

Sad thy tale, thou idle page 117 

Say sages, what's the charm 197 

Sad bird of night . . 190 

Searching auld wives barrels 186 

Shame on ungrateful man . 113 
Sir, as your mandate did request 77 

Sir, o'er a gill I gat your card 99 

Sing on sweet thrush . 171 

Some books are lies . . 16 

Some hae meat, and canna eat 195 

Spare me thy vengeance . 202 

Still aDxious to secure . 180 

Streams that glide . . 123 
Stop passenger ! my story's brief 153 

Sweet floweret pledge . 163 

Sweet Sensibility, how charming 169 

Sweet naivete of feature . 171 

Sae flaxen were her ringlets 284 

Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled 273 

She's fair and fause , . 258 

She is a winsome wee tiling 258 

Should auld acquaintance 234 

Simmer's a pleasant time 312 

Sleep'st thou or wak'st thou 286 

Slow spreads the gloom . 334 

Stav my charmer . . 229 

Sweet fa's the eve . . 248 

Sweetest May, let love inspire 328 

Talk not to me of savages . 202 
Thou bed in which I first began 1S7 
The friend whom wild . 187 
The black-headed Eagle . 189 
Though fickle fortune . 190 

Thine be the volumes, Jessy 196 
There's death in the cup . 196 
Through and through . 198 

The solemn League . . 200 
That there is falsehood . 200 
The graybeard, old Wisdom 200 
Thou of an independent mind 179 
The wintry west extends his blast 7 
The man in life wherever placed 12 
The sun had closed . 53 

Thou flattering mark . . 73 
The simple bard ... 100 
This wat ye all whom it concerns 105 
The lamp of day . . . 118 
Thou whom chance . . 136 
Thou ling'ring star . . 147 
There were five carlines . 150 
This day, Time winds . . 152 
The wind blew hollow . . 166 
fhou, who thy honour . 168 
Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths 175 
Tis friendship's pledge . 178 
To RiddelL much lamented man 201 
'Twas in that place . 69 

Twas where the birch . 184 



xxxii INDEX. 


Page 
There was a lass, and she was fair 269 


Page 
When nature her great . 130 


Thou hast left me ever, Jamie 274 


What needs this din . , 154 


The lovely lass o' Inverness 276 


When chapman billies . 159 


The laddies by the hanks o' Nith 236 


While virgin spring . . 168 


Thine am I, my faithful fair 237 


While Europe's eye . . 170 


The Thames flows proudly . 243 


Whoe'er thou art", these lines 182 


They snool me sair . 251 


Whoe'er thou art, reader 198 


The noble Maxwells . . 252 


What dost thou in that . 201 


Thickest night o'erhang . 230 


Wi' braw new branks . . 96 


The day returns ... 233 


Willie Smellie to Crochallan 112 


The lazy mist hangs 233 


With Pegasus upon a day . 140 


There's nought but care . 212 


Wow, but your letter . 143 


There was a lad was bora in Kyle 213 


Wae is my heart . . 27% 


The Catrine woods were yellow 214 


Wee Willie Gray ... 327 


The gloomy night is gathering 223 


When the drums do beat . 331 


Though cruel fate should bid ns 221 


"What will I do gin my hoggie die 312 


There were three kings . 208 


Where hae ye been sae braw, lad 314 


The smiling spring comes in 257 


Where live ye, my bonnie lass 317 


There's auld Rob Morris . 260 


When winter's wind . . 322 


There's braw, braw lads . 262 


When Guildford good . . 224 


There groves o' sweet myrtle 301 


Where braving . . . 228 


There was once a day . 308 


When first I saw fair Jeanie's 237 


There was a lass . . . 311 


When rosy morn . . . 238 


The ploughman he's a bonnie lad 311 


What can a young lassie . 249 


Though women's minds . 314 


When first I came . . 214 


The tither mora, when I forlorn 315 


Whom will you send . . 293 


The weary pund,the weary pund 316 


Wha will buy my troggin' . 296 


The bonniest lad that e'er I saw 323 


Why, why tell thy lover . 304 


There was a bonnie lass 328 


Where Cart rinsrowin' to the sea 257 


The blude red rose at Yule 329 


When o'er the hill the eastern star 259 


The heather was blooming 330 


When wild war's deadly blast 264 


There's a youth in this city 332 


While larks with little wing 270 


The sun he is sunk in the west 336 


Where are the joys I have met 274 


True-hearted was he . 264 


Wilt thou be my dearie . 278 


Turn again, thou fair Eliza 254 


Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary 220 


'Twas in the seventeen hunder 297 


Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed 255 


'Twas nae her bonnie blue ee 301 




'Twas even — the dewy fields 223 


Ye Irish lords, ye knights . 63 
Ye men of wit and wealth . 200 


Upon that night when fairies 38 


Ye holy walls, that still sublime 191 


Up wi' the carles o' Dysart 320 


Ye hypocrites 1 are these . 189 


Wae worth thy power . 94 


Ye true " Loyal Natives" . 189 


Wee, modest, crimson-tipped 78 


You're welcome, Willie Stewart 195 


Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous 37 


Your news and review, sir . 139 


When chill November's surly 45 


Ye gallants bright, I rede ye right 239 


When biting Boreas . . 193 


Ye sons of old Killie . . 222 


Why am I loath to leave 11 


Ye Jacobites by name . 318 


While winds fraeaff Ben-Lomond 15 


Ye banks and braes . . 255 


While briers and woodbines 22 


Ye banks and braes, and streams 258 


While new-ca'd kye rowte 24 


You're welcome to despots . 266 


While at the stook . . 35 


Young Jockey was the blythest 314 


When by a generous public's 114 


Young Jamie, pride of a' the plain 321 


When death's dark stream 117 


Yon wild mossy mountains 251 


Why, ye tenants of the lake 124 


Young Peggie blooms . . 218 



THE COTTEE'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 

INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ. 



Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 

Their homely joys and destiny obscure ; 
Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, 

The short and simple annals of the poor.— Gva. y- 

My loved, my honoured, much respected friend ! 

No mercenary bard his homage pays ; 
"With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end : 

My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise. 

To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, 
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene ; 

The native feelings strong, the guileless ways ; 
What Aiken in a cottage would have been ; 
A.h ! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween ! 

•November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; whistle 

The short'ning winter-day is near a close ; 
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ; 

The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose : crows 

The toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes, 
This night his weekly moil is at an end, 

Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, 
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, 
And weary o'er the moor, his course does hanieward bend. 

At length his lonely cot appears in view, 

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
Th* expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher through stagger 

To meet their dad, wi' nichterin' noise and glee, father, flut- 

His wee bit ingle, blinking bonnily, fire [tering 

His clean hearthstane, his thriftie wine's smile, 

The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, anxiety 

And makes him quite forget his labour and hi3 toil. 

Belyve, the elder bairns come trapping in, by-and-by 

At service out, amang the farmers roun' : 
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentde rin plough, watchful 



BURNS' poems. 



A canine errand to a neibor town : easy 

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, 

In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, 

Comes hame, perhaps to show a braw new gown, 

Or deposit her sair won penny-fee, hardwonwagcs 

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. 

With joy unfeigned, brothers and sisters meet, 

And each for other's welfare kindly spiers : inquires 

The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet ; 

Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears ; news 

The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; 
Anticipation forward points Ihe view. 

The mother, wi' her needle and her shears, 
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel*s the new— makes, clothes, 
The father mixes a* wi' admonition due. [almost 

Their master's and their mistress's command, 

The younkers a' are warned to obey ; 
And mind their labours wi' an eydent hand, diligent 

And ne'er, though out o' sight, to j auk or play : dally 

" And oh ! be sure to fear the Lord alway ! 
And mind your duty, duly, morn and night ! 

Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, go 

Implore His counsel and assisting might : 
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright !" 

But, hark ! a rap comes gently to the door ; 

Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, who knows 

Tells how a neibor lad cam' o'er the moor neighbour 

To do some errands, and convoy her hame. home 

The wily mother sees the conscious flame 
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek, 

With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, 
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak ; half 

Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake. 

Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben ; in 

A strappin' youth ; he taks the mother's eye ; 

Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en ; 

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. cows 

The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' jiy, 

But blate and lathefu', scarce can weel behave ; bashful, hesi- 
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy [fating 

What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave : 
Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave, other people 

Oh happy love ! — where love like this is found ! 

Oh heartfelt raptures !— bliss beyond compare ! 
I've paced much this weary, mortal round, 

And sage experience bids me this declare — 

" Tf Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, 
One cordial in this melancholy vale, 

'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, 
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, 
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale." 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Ts there, in human form, that bears a heart, 

A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth ! 
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, 

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ? 

Curse on his perjur'd arts ! dissembling smooth ! 
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled ? 

Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, 
Points to the parents fondling o'er their child ? 
Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild ? 

But now the supper crown3 their simple board, 

The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food ; porridge 

The soupe their only hawkie does afford, cow 

That *yont the hallan snugly chows her cood : inner wall, chews 
The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, 

To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck, fell, well-saved cheese, 
And aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it gude ; oft [spicy 

The frugal wine, garrulous, will tell., 

How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell. twelvemonth, 

mi <, n , •, •> • r [in flower 

The cheerfu supper done, wi serious face, u 

They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; fire 

The sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace, 

The big ha'-bible, ance his father's pride ; once 

His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, 
His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare ; gray cheeks 

Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 
He wales a portion with judicious care ; selects 

And " Let us worship God J" he says, with solemn air. 

They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; 

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim : 
Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise, 
■ Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name, 

Or noble Elgin beets the heavenward flame, adds fuel to 

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : 

Compared with these, Italian trills are tame ; 
The tickled ear no heartfelt raptures raise ; 
Xae unison ha'e they with our Creator's praise. 

The priest-like father reads the sacred page — 

How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 

Or how the royal bard did groaning lie 
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire ; 

Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry ; 
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; 
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme — 
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed ,* 

How He, who bore in heaven the second name, 
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head : 
How his first followers and servants sped, 

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : 



BURNS' POEMS. 



How he, who lone in Patmos banished, 
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand ; 
\nd heard great Bab 'Ion's doom pronounced by Heaven's command 

Then, kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King, 

The saint, the father, and the husband prays : 
Hope " springs exulting on triumphant wing,"* 

That thus they all shall meet in future days 

There ever bask in uncreated rays, 
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 

Together hymning their Creator's praise, 
In such society, yet still more dear ; 
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. 

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, 

In all the pomp of method, and of art, 
When men display to congregations wide, 

Devotion's every grace, except the heart ! 

The Power, incens'd, the pageant will desert, 
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; 

But, haply, in some cottage far apart, 
May hear, well pleased, the language of the sou! ; 
And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol. 

Then homeward all take off their several way ; 

The youngling cottagers retire to rest : 
The parent-pair their secret homage pay, 

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, 

That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest, 
And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, 

"Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, 
For them and for their little ones provide ; 
But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. 

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 

That makes her loved at.home, revered abroad : 
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 

" An honest man's the noblest work of God ;" 

And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, 
The cottage leaves the palace far behind ; 

What is a lordling's pomp ? a cumbrous load, 
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, 
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined ! 

Oh Scotia ! my dear, my native soil ! 

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! 
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content ? 

And oh ! may Heaven their simple lives prevent 
From luxury's contagion, weak and vi'e ! 

Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 
A virtuous populace may rise the while, 
And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle. 

* Popa's }Ylmdior Forest— B 



BURXS' POEMS. 



Oh Thou ! -who poured the patriotic tide 

That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart.* 

"Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, 
Or nobly die, the second glorious part, 
(The patriot's God, peculiarly thou art, 

His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward !) 
Oh never, never, Scotia's realm desert ; 

But still the patriot, and the patriot bard, 
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard ! 



A FRAGMENT. 

My heart melts at human wretchedness ; 
And with sincere, though unavailing sighs, 
I view the helpless children of distress. 
With tears indignant I behold the oppressor 
Rejoicing in the honest man's destruction, 
Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime. 
Even you, ye helpless crew, I pity you ; 
Ye whom the seeming good think sin to pity; 
Ye poor, despised, abandoned vagabonds, 
Whom vice, as usual, has turned o'er to ruin. 
— Oh, but for kind, though ill-requited friends, 
I had been driven forth like you forlorn, 
The most detested, worthless wretch among you ! 



WINTER, A DIRGE. 

The wintry west extends his blast, 

And hail and rain does blaw ; blow 

Or, the stormy north sends driving forth 

The blinding. sleet and snaw: snow 

While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down, brook 

And roars frae bank to brae ; from, hii] 

And bird and- beast in covert rest, 

And pass the heartless day. 

u The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast," 

The joyless winter day, 
Let others fear, to me more dear 

Than all the pride of May : 
The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, 

My griefs it seems to join ; 
The leafless trees my fancy please, 

Their fate resembles mine ! 

Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme 

These woes of mine fulfil, 
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best, 

Because they are thy will ! 



BURNS' poems. 



Then all I want (oh, do thou grant 
This one request of mine !) 

Since to enjoy thou dost deny, 
Assist me to resign. 



A PRAYER, 

WRITTEN UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT ANGUISH. 

Oh Thou great Being ! what Thou art 

Surpasses me to know : 
Yet sure I am, that known to Thee 

Are all thy works below. 

Thy creature here before Thee stands, 

All wretched and distrest ; 
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul 

Obey thy high behest. 

Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act 

From cruelty or wrath ! 
Oh free my weary eyes from tears, 

Or close them fast in death ! 

But if I must afflicted be, 

To suit some wise design ; 
Then man my soul with firm resolves, 

To bear, and not repine ! 



THE DEATH AND DYING WORDS OF POOR MAILIE, 
THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE : 

AN UNCO MOURNFU* TALE. very 

As Mailie and her lambs thegither, together 

"Were ae day nibbling on the tether, one, halter 

Upon her cloot she coost a hitch, foot, caught, loop 

And owre she warsled in the ditch : over, struggled 
There, groaning, dying, she did lie, 

When Hughoc* he cam' doytin by. -walking stupidly 

Wi' glowering een and lifted hands, staring eyes 

Pocr Hughoc like a statue stands ; 

He saw her days were near-hand ended.. nearly 

But, waes my heart ! he could na mend it. alas 

He gaped wide, but naething spak — 

At length poor Mailie silence brak. 

' Oh thou, whose lamentable face 
Appears to mourn my woefu' case ! 

* A neighbour herd l&tL—B 



burns' poems. 


1 


My dying words attentive hear, 


And bear them to my master dear. 




" Tell him, if e'er again he keep 




As muckle gear as buy a sheep, 


much money 


Oh, bid him never tie them mair 


more 


Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair ! 




But ca' them out to park or hill, 


drive 


And let them wander at their will ; 




So may his flock increase, and grow 




To scores o' lambs, and packs o' woo' ! 


wool 


" Tell him he was a master kin', 




And aye was guid to me and mine ; 


always, good 


And now my dying charge I gie him — 


give 


My helpless lambs I trust them wi' him. 




" Oh, bid him save their harmless lives 




Frae dogs, and tods, and butchers' knives! 


from, foxes 


But gie them guid cow-milk their fill, 




Till they be fit to fend themsel ; 


provide for 


And tent them duly, e'en and morn, 


tend 


Wi' teats o' hay, and ripps o* corn. 


portions, handful3 


" And may they never learn the gaets 


ways 


Of other vile, wanrestfu' pets ; 


restless 


To slink through slaps, and reave and steal 


gaps 


At stacks o' peas, or stocks o s kail. 


stem, cabbage 


So may they, like their great forbears, 


ancestors 


For mony a year come through the shears : 


many 


So wives will gie them bits o' breid, 


bread 


And bairns greet for them when they're deid. 


weep 


" My poor toop-lamb, my son and heir, 


tup 


Oh, bid him breed him up wi' care ; 




And if he live to be a beast, 




To pit some havins in his breast ! 


manners 


" And warn him, what 1 winna name. 




To stay content wi' yowes at hame ; 


ewes 


And no to rin and wear his cloots, 


hoofs 


Like ither menseless, graceless brutes. 


other senseless 


" And neist my yowie, silly thing, 


next, ewe 


Oh, keep thee frae a tether string ; 


from 


Oh, may thou ne'er forgather up 


encounter 


Wi' ony bias tit, moorland toop, 


any, tup 


But aye keep mind to moop and mell 


mump, associate 


Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel*. 




" And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath 


children 


I lea'e my blessin' wi' you baith : 


boti, 


And when you think upo' your roither, 




Mind to be kin' to ane anither. 


one anothe: 


" Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail 


do not 


To tell my master a' my tale." 




This said, poor Mailie turned her heid, 


head 


And closed her een amang the deid. 


eyes, dead 



10 BUHNS' POEMS. 


TOOR mailie's elegy. 




Lament in rhyme, lament in prose, 




WT saut tears tricklin' down your nose ; 


salt 


Our bardie's fate is at a clos-e, 


bard 


Tast a* remead ; 


remedy 


The last sad cape-stane of his woes — 


cope-stone 


Poor Mailie's deid ! 




It's no the loss o' waiTs gear, 


world's wealth 


That could sae bitter draw the tear, 


so 


Or mak' our bardie, dowie, wear 


sorrowful 


The mourning weed : 




He's lost a friend and neibor dear, 


neighbour 


In Mailie deid. 




Through a' the toun she trotted by him ; 


town 


A lang half-mile she could descry him ; 


long 


Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, 


espy 


She ran wi' speed : 




A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him 


more 


Than Mailie deid. 




I wat she was a sheep o' sense, 


ween 


And could behave hersel wi' mense : 


discretion 


I'll say't, she never brak a fence 


broke 


Through thievish greed. 




Our bardie, lanely, keeps the spence 


lonely, inner room 


Sin* Mailie's deid. 


since 


Or, if he wanders up the howe, 


valley 


Her living image in her yowe, 


ewe 


Comes bleatiDg to him, owre the knowe, 


over, hillock 


For bits o' breid ; 




And down the briny pearls rowe 


roll 


For Mailie deid. 




She was nae get o' moorland tips, 


rams 


Wi' tawted ket and hairy hips, 


matted fleece 


For her forbears were brought in ships 


ancestors 


Frae yont the Tweed: 


from beyond 


A bonnier fleesh ne'er crossed the clips 


fleece 


Than Mailie deid. 




Wae worth the man wha first did shape 


woe 


That vile, wanchancie thing — a rape ! 


dangerous, rope 


It makes guid fellows girn and gape, 


grin 


Wi' chokin dreid ; 




And Robin's bonnet wave wi crape, 




For Mailie deid. 




Oh a' ye bards on bonnie Doon ! 




And wha on Ayr your chanters tune 


who, pipes 


Come, join the melancholious croon 


moan 


0' Robin's reed ! 




His heart will never get aboon— 


above 


His Mailie's deid ! 





BURNS' POEMS. 11 



A PRAYER IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 

Oh thou unknown, Almighty Cause 

Of all rny hope and fear ! 
In whose dread presence, ere an hour, 

Perhaps I must appear ! 

If I have wandered in those paths 

Of life I ought to shun ; 
As something, loudly, in my breast, 

Remonstrates I have done ; 

Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me 
With passions wild and strong ; 

And listening to their witching voice 
Has often led me wrong. 

Where human weakness has come short, 

Or frailty stept aside, 
Do Thou, All-good S for such thou art, 

In shades of darkness hide. 

Where with intention I have err'd, 

No other plea I have, 
But, Thou art good ; and goodness still 

Delighteth to forgive. 



STANZAS 

ON THE SAME OCCASION. 

Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene ? 

Have I so found it full of pleasing charms ? 
Some drops of joy with draughts of ill betweeu : 

Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms I 
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms ? 

Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode ? 
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms ; 

I tremble to approach an angry God, 
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod. 

Fain would I say, " Forgive my foul offence !" 

Fain promise never more to disobey ; 
But should my Author health again dispense, 

Again I might desert fair virtue's way : 
Again in folly's path might go astray ; 

Again exalt the brute, and sink the man ; 
Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray, 

Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan ? 
Who s^'n so oft have mourned, yet to temptation ran \ 



42J BURNS' POEMS. 



Oh Thou, great Governor of all below ! 

If I may dare a lifted eye to' Thee, 
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow, 

Or still the tumult of the raging sea : 
With that controlling power assist even me 

Those headlong furious passions to confine ; 
For all unfit I feel my powers to be, 

To rule their torrent in the allowed line ; 
Oh, aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine ! 



Oh why should I repine, 

And be an ill foreboder ? 
I'm twenty-three, and five feet nine — 

I'll go and be a sodger ! 

I gat some gear wf mickle care, wealth 

I held it weel thegither ; well together 

But now it's gane, and something mair — gone, more 
I'll go and be a sodger ! 



Oh leave novels, ye Mauchline belles, 
Ye're safer at your spinning-wheel ; 

Such witching books are baited hooks 
For rakish rooks like Rob Mossgiel. , 

Beware a tongue that's smoothly hung, 
A heart that warmly seems to feel ; 

That feeling heart but acts a part, 
'Tis rakish art in Rob Mossgiel. . . . 



THE FIRST PSALM. 

The man, in life wherever placed. 

Hath happiness in store, 
Who walks not in the wicked's way, 

Nor learns their guilty lore ! 

Nor from the seat of scornful pride 
Casts forth his eyes abroad, 

But with humility and awe 
Still walks before his God. 

That man shall flourish like the trees 
Which by the streamlets grow ; 

The fruitful top is spread on high, 
And firm the root below. 

But he whose blossom buds in guilt, 
Shall to the ground be cast, 



burns' poems. 13 



And, like the rootless stubble, tost 
Before the sweeping blast. 

For why ? that God the good adore 
Hath given them peace and rest, 

But hath decreed that wicked men 
Shall ne'er be truly blest. 



THE FIRST SIX VERSES OF THE NINETIETH 
PSALM. 

Oh Thou, the first, the greatest friend 

Of all the human race ! 
Whose strong right hand has ever been 

Their stay and dwelling-place ! 

Before the mountains heaved their heads 

Beneath Thy forming hand, 
Before this ponderous globe itself 

Arose at Thy commamd ; 

That Power which raised and still upholds 

This universal frame, 
From countless, unbeginning time, 

"Was ever still the same. 

Those mighty periods of years 

"Which seem to us so vast, 
Appear no more before Thy sight 

Than yesterday that's past. 

Thou giv'st the word : Thy creature, man, 

Is to existence brought ; 
Again Thou say'st, " Ye sons of men, 

Return ye into nought V* 

Thou layest them with all their cares 

In everlasting sleep ; 
As with a flood Thou tak'st them off 

"With overwhelming sweep. 

They flourish like the morning flower, 

In beauty's pride arrayed ; 
But long ere night, cut down, it lies 

All withered and decayed. 



EPISTLE TO JOHN RANKINE, 

I've sent you here some rhyming ware, 

A' that I bargained for, and mair ; more 

Sae, whan ye hae an hour to spare, so, whek 

I will expect 
Yon sang, yell sen 't wi' canny care, song, thoughtful 

And no neglect. 



BURNS POEMS. 



Though, faith, sma' heart hae I to sing ! 
My Muse dow scarcely spread her wing ; 
I've played mysel a bonnie spring, 

And danced my fill ; 
I'd better gaen and sair't the king 

At Bunker's Hill. 

'Twas ae night lately, in my fun, 

I gaed a roving wi' the gun, 

And brought a paitrick to the gran', 

A bonnie hen, 
And as the twilight was begun, 

Thought nane wad ken. none would know 

The poor wee thing was little hurt ; 

I straikit it a wee for sport, stroked, short time 

Ne'er thinking they wad fash me for't ; would, trouble 

But NOCHT I CABE ; 

Somebody tells the poacher-court 

The hale affair. whole 



can 
tune 

gone, served 



one 

went 

partridge, ground 



Some auld used hands had taen a note old, taken 

That sic a hen had got a shot ; such 

I was suspected for the plot, 

I scorned to le ; lie 

So gat the whistle o' my groat, played a losing game 

And pay't the fee. . . 



As soon's the clocking time is by, 
And the wee pouts begun to cry, 
Then, I'se hae sportin' by and by, 

For my gowd guinea, 
Though I should hunt the buckskin kye 

For't in Virginia. . . . 

It puts me aye as mad's a hare ; 
So I can rhyme and write nae mair, 
But pennyworths again is fair, 

When time's expedient : 
Meanwhile I am, respected sir, 

Your most obedient. 



breeding 
poults 

gold 
buffaloes 



ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT RUISSEAUX. 



Now Robin lies in his last lair, 
He'll gabble rhyme nor sing nae mair, 
Cauld poverty, wi' hungry stare, 

Nae mair shall fear him ; 
Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care, 

E'er mair come near him. 

To tell the truth, they seldom fash't him, 
Except the moment that they crush't him ; 



no more 
cold 



ill-natured 



troubled 



BURNS' POEMS. 



15 



For sune as chance or fate had hush't em, soon 

Though e'er sae short, 
Then wi' a rhyme or sang he lash't ! em, 

And thought it sport. 

Though he was bred to kintra wark, country work 

And counted was baith wight and stark, athletic, strong 
Yet that was never Robin's mark 

To mak a man ; 

But tell him, he was learned and dark, ready with pen 

Ye -roosed him than ! praised 



THE BELLES OF MAUCHLIKE. 

In Mauchline there dwells six proper young belles, 

The pride of the place and its neighbourhood a', 
Their carriage and dress, a stranger would guess, 

In Lon'on or Paris, they'd gotten it a'. 
Miss Miller is fine, Miss Maryland's divine, 

Miss Smith she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw, 
There's beauty and fortune to get wi' Miss Morton ; 

But Armour's the jewel for me o* them a'. 



AN EPISTLE TO DAVIE, 

A BROTHER POET. 

January — 
While winds frae aff Ben Lomond blaw, blow 

And bar the doors wi' driving snaw, snow 

And hing us owre the ingle, hang, over, fire 

I set mo down to pass the time, 
And spin a verse or two o' rhyme, 

In hamely westlin jingle. homely, western 

While frosty winds blaw in the drift, 

Ben to the chimla lug, in, chimney nook 

I grudge a wee the great folk's gift, little 

That live sae bien and snug : so comfortably 

I tent less, and want less notice 

Their roomy fireside ; 
But hanker and canker 
To see their hoeeid pride. 

It's hardly in a body's power 

To keep, at times, frae being sour, from 

To see how things are shared ; 

How best o' chiels are whiles in want, fellows, sometimes 

While coofs on countless thousands rant, fools 

And ken na how to war't ; know not, spend 

But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head, trouble 

Though we hae little gear wealth 
We're fit to win our daily bread, 

As lang's we're hale and fier : long, sound 



16 


burns' poems. 






" Mair speir na, nor fear na,"* 


more ask nol 




Auld age ne'er mind a feg, 


old, fig 




The last o't, the warst o't, 


worst 




Is only but to beg. 






To lie in kilns and barns at e'en 






When banes are crazed, and bluid is thin, 


bones, blood 




Is doubtless great distress ! 






Yet then content could make us blest ; 






Even then, sometimes we'd snatch a taste 






Of truest happiness. 






The honest heart that's free frae a* 


from 




Intended fraud or guile, 






However fortune kick the ba', 






Has aye some cause to smile : 






And mind still, you'll find still, 






A comfort this nae sma' ; 


not small 




Nae mair then, we'll care then, 


no 




Nae farther we can fa\ 


fall 




What though, like commoners of air, 






We wander out we know not where, 






But either house or haF ? 


without 




Yet Nature's charms, the hills and woods, 






The sweeping vales, and foaming floods, 






Are free alike to all. 






In days when daisies deck the ground, 






And blackbirds whistle clear, 






With honest joy our hearts will bound 






To see the coming year : 






On braes when we please, then, 


hillocks 




We'll sit and sowth a tune ; 


try 




Syne rhyme till't, we'll time till't, 


then 




And sing't when we hae dune. 


have done 




It's no in titles nor in rank ; 






It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank, 






To purchase peace and rest ; 






It's no in making muckle mair ; 


much 




It's no in books, it's no in lair, 


learning 




To mak us truly blest ; 






If happiness hae not her seat 






And centre in the breast, 






We may be wise, or rich, or great, 






But never can be blest : 






Nae treasures nor pleasures 






Could make us happy lang ; 






The heart aye's the part aye 






That makes us right or wrang. 


wrong 




Think ye, that sic as you and I, 


such 




Wha drudge and drive through wet and dry, 


who 




Wi' never-ceasing toil ; 






Think ye, we are less blest than they, 






Wha scarcely tent us in their way, 


notice 




* 'Ramsay*. 


i 



BURNS' POEMS. 1] 



As hardly worth their while ? 
Alas !-how aft, in haughty mood, oft 

God's creatures they oppress ! 
Or else, neglecting a' that's guid, good 

They riot in excess ! 
Baith careless and fearless both 

Of either heaven or hell ! 
Esteeming and deeming 
It's a' an idle tale ! 

Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce ; 
Nor make our scanty pleasures less, 

By pining at our state ; 
And even should misfortunes come, 
I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some, 

An's thankfu' for them yet. 
They gie the wit of age to youth ; give 

They let us ken oursel' ; know 

They make us see the naked truth, 
The real guid and ill. 
Though losses and crosses 
Be lessons right severe, 
There's wit there, ye'll get there, 
Ye '11 find nae other where. 

But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts ! attend tc 

(To say aught less wad wrang the cartes, would wrong 

And" flatt'ry I detest), 
This life has joys for you and I ; 
And joys that riches ne'er could buy : 

And joys the very best. 
There's a' the pleasures o' the heart, 

The lover and the frien' ; 
Ye hae your Meg, your dearest part, 
And I my darling Jean ! 
It warms me, it charms me, 
To mention but her name : 
It heats me, it beets me, adds fuel 

And sets me a' on flame ! 

Oh all ye Powers who rule above ! 
Oh Thou whose very self art love ! 
Thou know'st my words sincere ! 
The life-blood streaming through my heart, 
Or my more dear immortal part, 

Is not more fondly dear ! 
When heart-corroding care and grief 

Deprive my soul of rest, 
Her dear idea brings relief 
And solace to my breast. 
Thou Being, all-seeing, 

Oh hear my fervent prayer I 
Still take her, and make her 
Thy most peculiar care I 



IK BURNS' POEMS. 


All hail, ye tender feelings dear ! 




The smile of love, the friendly tear, 




The sympathetic glow ! 




Long since, this world's thorny ways 




Had numbered out my weary days, 




Had it not been for you ! 




Fate still has blest me with a friend, 




In every care and ill ; 




And oft a more endearing band, 




A tie more tender still. 




It lightens, it brightens 




The tenebrific scene, 


dark 


To meet with, and greet with 




My Davie or my Jean ! 




Oh how that name inspires my style ! 




The word3 come skelpin', rank and file, 


hastening 


Amaist before I ken ! 


almost, know 


The ready measure rins as fine 


runs 


As Phoebus and the famous Nine 




Were glowrin' owre my pen. 


staring over 


My spaviet Pegasus will limp, 


spavin'd 


Till ance he's fairly het ; 


warm 


And then he'll hilch, and stilt, and jimp, 


hobble 


And rin an unco fit : 


at a good pace 


But lest then, the beast then 




Should rue this hasty ride, 




I'll light now, and dight now, 


wipe 


His sweaty, wizened hide. 


withered 


DEATH AND DR HORNBOOK 




A TRUE STORY. 




Some books are lies frae end to end, 


from 


And some great lies were never penn'd : 




Ev'n ministers they hae been kenn'd, 


kncwn 


In holy rapture, 




A rousing whid at times to vend, 


fib 


And naiPt wi' Scripture. . 




The clachan yill had made me canty — 1 


illage ale, merry 


I was na fou, but just had plenty ; 


drunk 


I stachered whyles, but yet took tent aye 


staggered, heed 


To free the ditches ; 


avoid 


And hillocks, stanes, and bushes kenn'd aye 


stones, knew 


Frae ghaists and witches. 


ghosts 


The rising moon began to glow'r 


stare 


The distant Cumnock hills out-owre : 


out-cvei 


To count her horns, wi' a' my power, 




I set mysel ; 




But whether she had three or four, 




I could na tell. 





BURNb' POEMS. 



IB 



I was come round about the hill, 

And todlin' down on Willie's mill, tottering 

Setting my staff wi' a' my skill, 

To keep me sicker ; secure 

Though leeward whyles, against my will, sometimes 

I took a bicker. short run 

I there wi' Something did forgather, meet with 

That put me in an eerie swither ; dismal hesitation 

An awfu' scythe, out-owre ae shouther, over one shoulder 

Clear-dangling, hang ; 
A three-taed leister on the ither pronged fish-spear, other 

Lay, large and lang. long 

Its stature seemed lang Scotch ells twa, 
The queerest shape that e'er I saw, 
For not a wame it had ava ; 

And then, its shanks, 
They were as thin, as sharp and ?ma', 

As cheeks o' branks.* 



two 

belly, at all 
legs 

[mowing 

good even, 

sowing 



u Guid e'en," quo' I; " Friend, hae ye been mawin, 
When ither folks are busy sawin' V 
It seemed to mak a kind o' stan', 

But naething spak ; 
At length says I, " Friend, whare ye gaun — where, going 

Will ye go back V 9 

It spak right howe — " My name is Death, hollow 

But be na fley'd." Quoth I, " Guid faith, frightened 

Ye re maybe come to stap my breath ; stop 

But tent me, billie — observe, my lad 

I rede ye weel tak care o' scaith, advise, well, harm 

See, there's a gully I" clasp-knife 



" Guidrnan," quo' he, " put up your whittle, 
I'm no designed to try its mettle ; 
But if I did, I wad be kittle 

To be mislear'd ; 
I wadna mind it, no that spittle 

Out-owre my beard." 

" Weel, weel !" says I, " a bargain be't ; 
Come, gie's your hand, and sae we're gree't ; 
We'll ease our shanks and tak a seat — 

Come, gie's your news ; 
This while ye hae been mony a gate, 

At mony a house." 

" Ay, ay !" quo' he, and shook his heau s 
" It's e'en a lang lang time indeed 
Sin' I began to nick the thread, 

And choke the breath : 
Folk maun do something for their bread, 

And sae maun Death. 



weapon 



difficult 
so baulked 



agreed 



sometime, road 
many 

long 

cut 

must 
so 

* A wooden frame, forming, with ft rope, a bridle for troublesome cows and horse* 



20 



burns' poems. 



" Sax thousand years are near hand fled six, nearly 

Sin' I was to the hutching bred, killing 
And mony a scheme in vain's been laid, 

To stap or scaur me ; stop, scare 

Till ane Hornbook's ta'en up the trade, ' taken 

And faith he'll waur me. worst 

" Ye ken Jock Hornbook i' the clachan, know, village 

I wish his king's-hood in a spleuchan ! tobacco-pouch 

He's grown sae weel acquant wi' Buchan* acquainted 

And ither chaps, other 

The weans haud out their fingers laughin', children hold 

And pouk my hips. poke 

" See, here's a scythe, and there's a dart, 

They hae pierced mony a gallant heart ; have 

But Doctor Hornbook wi' his art 

And well-tried skill, 
Has made them baith no worth a scakt, both, scratch 

Nae haet they'll kill. nothing 

" 'Twas but yestreen, nae further gaen, yesterday, past 

I threw a noble throw at ane ; one 
AYi' less, I'm sure, I've hundreds slain ; 

But spite my care, 

It just play'd dirl on the bane, quivered, bone 

But did nae mair. more 

" Hornbook was by wi' ready art, 

And had sae fortified the part, bo 

That when I looked to my dart, 

It was sae blunt, 
Nae haet o't wad hae pierced the heart 

O' a kail runt. cabbage-stem 

u I drew my scythe in sic a fury, such 

I nearhand cowpit wi' my hurry, nearly tumbled 

But yet the bauld apothecary bold 

Withstood the shock ; 

I might as weel hae tried a quarry well 

0' hard whin rock. 

" And then a' doctor's saws and whittles, knives 

Of a' dimensions, shapes, and metals, 
A' kinds o' boxes, mugs, and bottles, 

He's sure to hae ; 
Their L&tin names as fast he rattles 

As AB C. 

" Calces o' fossils, earths, and trees ; 
True sal-marinum o' the seas ; 
The farina of beans and peas, 

He has't in plenty ; 
Aqua fontis, what you please, 

He can content ye/' 

* Buchan's Domc$Xc Medicine, 



BURNS' IViiMS 


21 


" Waes me for Johnny Ged's* hole now," 


alas 


Quo' I ; "If that thae news be true, 


these 


His braw calf-wardf where gowans grew, 


fine, daisies 


Sae white and bonnie. 




Xae doubt they'll riye it wi' the pleugh ; 


teai ' 


They'll ruin Johnny i" 




The creature grained an eldritch laugh, 


groaned, unearthly 


And says, " Ye need na yoke the pleugh, 


plough 


Kirkyards will soon be tilled eneugh, 


enough 


Tak ye nae fear : 




They'll a' be trenched wi' mony a sheugh 


furrow 


In twa-three year. 




" Whare I killed ane a fair strae death, 


whare, in bed 


By loss o' blood or want o' breath, 




This night, I'm free to tak my aith, 


oath 


That Hornbook's skill 




Has clad a score i' their last claith, 


clothes 


By drap and pill. 


drop 


" An honest wabster to his trade, 


weaver 


Whase wife's twa nieves were scarce weel-bred, two fists 


Gat tippence-worth to mend her head, 


got twopence 


When it was sair ; 


sore 


The wife slade cannie to her bed, 


slid gently 


But ne'er spak mair. 


spoke more 


" That's just a swatch o' Hornbook's way ; 


specimen 


Thus goes he on from day to day, 




Thus does he poison, kill, and slay, 




An's weel paid for't ; 




Yet stops me o' my lawfu' prey 




Wi' his pill dirt : 




" But hark ! I'll tell you of a plot, 




Though dinna ye be speaking o't ; 




I'll nail the self-conceited sot 




As dead's a' herrin' : 




Neist time we meet, I'll wad a groat, 


next, wager 


He get's his fail-in' I" 


drubbing 


But just as he began to tell, 




The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell 




Some wee short hour ayont the twal, 


oeyond, twelve 


Which raised us baith : 


both 


I took the way that pleased mysel', 




And sae did Death. 




* The grave digger. t Pasturage 


of the churchyard. 



22 BURNS' POEMS. 



FIRST EPISTLE TO J. LAPRAIK, 

AX OLD SCOTTISH BARD. 

April 1, 1785. 
While briers and woodbines budding green, 
And paitricks scraichin' loud at e'en, partridges screaming 
And morning poussie wbiddin seen, hare scudding 

Inspire my muse, 
This freedom in an unknown Men' 
I pray excuse. 

On Fasten-e'en we bad a rockin', Shrovetide, meeting 

To ca' the crack and weave our stockin' ; chat 

And there was muckle fun and jokin', much 

Ye need na doubt ; 
At length we had a hearty yokin* 

At sang about. song 

There was ae sang, amang the rest, one 

Aboon them a' it pleased me best, above 

That some kind husband had addrest 

To some sweet wife : 
It thirled the heart-strings through the breast, enthrall'd 

A' to the life. 

I've scarce heard ought described sae weel 
What generous manly bosoms feel ; 
Thought I, " Can this be Pope, or Steele, 

Or Beattie's wark?" 
They tauld me 'twas an odd kind chiel told, fellow 

About Muirkirk. 

It pat me fidgin-fain to hear't, put, excitedly eager 

And sae about him there I spier't, inquired 

Then a' that ken't him round declared knew 

He had ingine, genius 

That nane excelled it, few cam near't, none 

It was sae fine. 

That, set him to a pint of ale, 

And either douce or merry tale, grave 

Or rhymes and sangs he'd made himsel, 

Or witty catches, 
'"Tween Inverness and Teviotdale, 

He had few matches. 

Then up I gat, and swore an aith, got, oath 

Though I should pawn my pleugh and graith, harness 

Or die a cadger pownie's death pedlar poney's 

At some dyke back, wall 

A pint and gill I'd gie them baith both 

To hear your crack. chat 

But, first and foremost, I should tell, 

Amaist as soon as I could spell, almost 



BURNS' POEMS. 



21 



I to the crambo-jingle fell, dogg er-el verses 

Though rude and rough, 

Yet crooning to a body's sell, humming 

Does weel eneugh. enough 

I am nae poet, in a sense, no 

But just a rhymer, like, by chance, 

And hae to learning nae pretence, have 

Yet, what the matter ! 
Whene'er my Muse does on me glance, 

I jingle at her. 

Your critic folk may cock their nose, 
And say, " How can you e'er propose, 
You, wha ken hardly verse frae prose, ^ho kno* 

To mak a sang?" 
But, by your leaves, my learned foes, 

Ye're'maybe wrang. 

What's a' your 'jargon o' your schools 
Your Latin names for horns and stool 
If honest nature made you fools, 

What sairs your gramms serves 

Ye'd better taen up spades and shools, taken, shovels 

Or knappin-hammers. stone-hammer? 

A set o' dull conceited hashes, stupid fellow.'. 

Confuse their brains in college classes ! 

They gang in stirks, and come out asses, young hullocks 

Plain truth to speak ; 
And syne they think to rlimb Parnassus then 

By dint o' Greek ! 

Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire ! give 

That's a' the learning I desire ; 

Then though I drudge through dub and mire 

At pleugh or cart, plough 

My Muse, though hamely in attire, homely 

May touch the heart. 

Oh for a spunk o* Allan's glee, spark 

Or Fergusson 5 s, the bauld and slee, bold, sly 

Or bright Lapraik's, my friend to be, 

If I can hit it ! 
That would be lear eneugh for me, learning 

If I could get it ! 

Now, sir, if ye hae friends enow, enough 

Though real friends I b'lieve are few, 

Yet, if your catalogue be fou, full 

I'se no insist, 
But gif ye want ae friend that's true. if 

I'm on your list. 

I winna blaw about mysel ; boasi 

As ill I like my fauts to tell ; faults 



14 



BURNS' POEMS. 



But friends and folk that wish me well, 
They sometimes roose me ; 

Though I maun own, as monie still 
As far abuse me. 



But Mauchline race, or Mauchline fair, 
I should be proud to meet you there ; 
We'se gie ae night's discharge to care, 

If we forgather, 
And hae a swap o' rhymin'-ware 

Wi* ane anither. 

The four-gill-chap, we'se gar him clatter, 
And kirsen him wi' reekin' water ; 
Syne we'll sit down and tak our whitter, 

To cheer our heart ; 
And, faith, we'se be acquainted better 

Before we part. 

Aw a' ye selfish war'ly race, 

Wha think that having, sense, and grace, 

Even love and friendship should give place 

To catch the plack ! 
I dinna like to see your face, 

Nor hear your crack. 

But ye whom social pleasure charms, 
Whose hearts the tide of kindness warms, 
Who hold your being on the terms, 

" Each aid the others,** 
Come to my bowl, come to my arms, 

My friends, my brothers ! 

But, to conclude my lang epistle, 

As my auld pen's worn to the grissle ; 

Twa lines frae you wad gar me fissle, 

"Who am, most fervent, 
While I can either sing or whissle, 

Your friend and servant. 



praise 
must, many 



give one 

meet together 

exchange 

one another 

make 

christen 

then, draught 



worldly 
manners 



small coin 
conversation 



lone 

stump 

would, fidget 

whistle 



SECOXD EPISTLE TO J. LAPRAIK. 

April 21, 1785. 
While new-ca'd kye rowte at the stake, new-driven, low 

And pownies reek in pleugh or braik, ponies smoke, plough 
This hour on e'enin's edge I take, evenings [barrow 

To own I'm debtor, 
To honest-hearted auld Lapraik, old 

For his kind letter. 

Forjesket sair, wi' weary legs, jaded sore 

Rattlin' the corn out-owre the rigs, over 

Or dealing through amang the naigs nags 
Their ten-hours' bite, 



BURNS POEMS. 



«5 



My awkwart Muse sair pleads and begs 
I would na write. 



awkward, sore 



The tapetless ramfeezl'd hizzie, heedless fatigued lass 

She's saft at best, and something lazy, soft 

Quo' she, " Ye ken, we've been sae busy know, so 

This month and mair, more 

That trouth, my head is grown right dizzie, indeed 

And something sair." 

Her dowff excuses pat me mad : stupid, put 

" Conscience," says I, " ye thowless jaud ! feeble creature 

I'll write, and that a hearty blaud, effusion 

This very night ; 

Sae dinna ye affront your trade, do not 

But rhyme it right. 

u Shall bauld Lapraik, the king o' hearts, bold 

Though mankind were a pack o 5 cartes, cards 

Roose you sae weel for your deserts, praise 

In terms sae friendly, 

Yet ye'll neglect to shaw your parts, show 

And thank him kindly ?" 

Sae I gat paper in a blink, twinkling 

And down gaed stumpie in the ink : went the pen 

Quoth I, "Before I sleep a wink, 

I vow I'll close it ; 
And if ye winna mak it clink, will not 

By Jove I'll prose it!" 

Sae I've begun to scrawl, but whether 

In rhyme, or prose, or baith thegither, both together 

Or some hotch-potch that's rightly neither, medley 

Let time mak proof; 

But I shall scribble down some blether, nonsense 

Just clean aff-loof. off-hand 

My worthy friend, ne'er grudge and carp. 
Though fortune use you hard and sharp ; 
Come, kittle up your moorland-harp tickle 

Wi' gleesome touch ; 
Ne'er mind how Fortune waft and warp — 

She's but a witch. 

She's gien me monie a jirt and fleg, n:any, jerk, kick 

Sin' I could striddle owre a rig ; since, over 
But, suee's I'm heee, though I should beg 

Wi s lyart pow, gray head 
I'll laugh, and sing, and shake my leg, 

As lang's I dow ! can 

Now comes the sax-and-twentieth simmer, summer 

I've seen the bud upo' the timmer, timber 

Still persecuted by the limmer, 
Frae year to year ; 



26 BURNS* P0EM8. 


But yet, despite the kittle kimmer, 


skittish gossip 


1, Rob, am here. 




Do ye envy the city gent, 




Behint a kist to lie and sklent, 


chest, deceive 


Or purse-proud, big wi' cent, per cent. 




And muckle waine, 


big belly 


Tn some bit brugh to represent 


burgh 


A bailie's name ? 




Or is't the paughty, feudal Thane, 


haughty 


Wi' ruffled sark and glancing cane, 


shirl 


Wha thinks himsel nae sheep-shank bane, 


bone 


But lordly stalks, 




While caps and bonnets aff are taen, 


off, taken 


As by he walks ? 




Oh Thou wha gies us each guid gift ! 


gives, gooM 


Gie me o' wit and sense a lift, 




Then turn me, if Thou please, adrift, 




Through Scotland wide ; 




Wi' cits nor lairds I wadna shift, 




In a' their pride ! 




Were this the charter of our state, 




" On pain o' hell be rich and great," 




Damnation then would be our fate, 




Beyond remede ; 


icmedj 


But, thanks to Heaven, that's no the gate 


T?aj 


We learn our creed. 




For thus the royal mandate ran, 




When first the human race began, 




* The social, friendly, honest man, 




Whate'er he be, 




'Tis he fulfils great Nature's plan, 




And none but he !" 




Oh mandate glorious and divine ! 




The followers o' the ragged Nine, 




Poor thoughtless fellows yet may shine 




In glorious light, 




While sordid sons o' Mammon's line 




Are dark as night. 




Though here they scrape, and squeeze, and growl, 


Their worthless nievefu' of a soul 


handful 


May in some future carcase howl, 




The forest's fright ; 




Or in some day-detesting owl 




May shun the light. 




Then may Lapraik and Burns arise, 




To reach their native kindred skies, 




And sing their pleasures, hopes, and joys, 




In some mild sphere, 




Still closer knit in friendship's ties, 




Each passing year ! 





BURNS' TOEMS. 21 



EPISTLE TO JOHN GOUDIE OF KILMARNOCK, 

ON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS ESSAYS. 

Oh, G'oudie ! terror of the Whigs, 
Dread of black coats and reverend wigs. 
Sour Bigotry, on her last legs, 

Girnin', looks back, grinning 

Wishin' the ten Egyptian plagues 

"Wad seize you quick. . would 

Poor gapin', glowerin' Superstition, 

Waes me ! she's in a sad condition ; alar 

Fie ! bring Black Jock, her state physician, 

To see her, 
Alas ! there's ground o' great suspicion 

She'll ne'er get better. 

Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple, long 

But now she's got an unco ripple ; great shake 

Haste, gie her name up i' the chapel, (to be prayed for) 

Nigh unto death ; 

See, how she fetches at the thrapple, strains, windpipe 

And gasps for breath. 

Enthusiasm's past redemption, 

Gane in a galloping consumption, gone 

Not a' the quacks, wi' a' their gumption, cleverness 

Will ever mend her. 
Her feeble pulse gies strong presuinrjtion gives 

Death soon will end her. 

'Tis you and Taylor are the chief 

W r ha are to blame for this mischief, 

But gin the kirk's ain fouk gat leave, if, own folk 

A toom tar barrel emptj 

And twa red peats wad send relief, 

And end the quarrel. 



THE TWA HERDS, OR THE HOLY TULZIE. 

Oh a' ye pious godly flocks, 

Weel fed on pastures orthodox, well 

Wha now will keep ye frae the fox, who, from 

Or worrying tykes, dogs 
Or wha will tent the waifs and crocks, stragglers, old ewes 

About the dykes ? stone fences 

The twa best herds in a' the wast, two, west 

That e'er gae gospel horn a blast, gave 
These five-and- twenty simmers past, 

Oh dool to tell, grief 

Hae had a bitter black out-cast have, quarrel 

Atween themsel. between 



*8 BURNS' POEMS. 


worthy 


Oh, Moodie, man, and wordy Russell, 


How could you raise so vile a bustle, 




Yell see how New-Light herds will whistle, 




And think it fine : 




The kirk's cause ne'er got sic a twistle 


twist 


Sin' I hae min\ 




0, sirs ! whae'er wad hae expeckit, 


have expected 


Your duty ye wad sae negleckit, 


would so 


Ye wha were ne'er by lairds respeckit, 


respected 


To wear the plaid, 




But by the brutes themselves eleckit, 


elected 


To be their guide. 




What flock wi' Moodie's flock could rank, 




Sae hale and hearty every shank ! 




Nae poisoned sour Arminian stank 




He let them taste, 




Frae Calvin's well, aye clear, they drank — 




Oh sic a feast ! 


such 


The thumm art, wil'-cat, brock, and tod, pole- 


cat, badger, fox 


Weel kenn'd his voice through a' the wood, 


well knew 


He smelt their ilka hole and road 


every 


Baith out and in, 


both 


And weel he liked to shed their bluid, 


blood 


And sell their skin. 




What herd like Russell tell'd his tale, 




His voice was heard through muir and dale, 




He kenn'd the kirk's sheep, ilka tail, 




O'er a' the height, 




And saw gin they were sick or hale, 


if 


At the first sight. 




He fine a mangy sheep could scrub, 


well 


Or nobly fling the gospel club, 




And New-Light herds could nicely drub, 




# * * * # 




Sic twa — Oh do I live to see't, 


such two 


Sic famous twa should disagreet, 


disagreed 


And names like villain, hypocrite, 




Ilk ither gi'en, 


3ach other given 


While New-Light herds, wi' laughm' spite, 




Say neither's liein' ! 


lying 


A' ye wha tent the gospel fauld, 


tend, fold 


There's Duncan deep, and Peebles shaul, 


shallow 


But chiefly thou, apostle Auld, 




We trust in thee, 




That thou wilt work them, het and cauld, 


hot, cold j 


Till they agree. 




Consider, sirs, how we're beset ; 




There's scarce a new herd that we get 




But comes frae 'mang that horrid set 




I winna name. 




» * # ' * * 







BURNS' poems. 


29 




Dalrymple has been lang our fae, 


foe 




M'Gill has wrought us meikle wae, 


much woe 




And that fell rascal ca'd M'Quhae, 






And baith the Shaws, 


both 




That aft hae made us black and blae, 


oft, blue 




Wi' vengefu' paws. 






Auld Wodrow lang has hatched mischief, 






We thought aye death wad bring relief, 






But he has gotten, to our grief, 






Ane to succeed him, 


one 




A ohield wha'll soundly buff our beef ; 


fellow, thrash 




I meikle dread him. 






And mony a ane that I could tell, 


many 




"VVha fain would openly rebel, 






Forby turn-coats amang oursel ; 


besides 




There's Smith for ane, 






I doubt he's but a grey-nick quill, 


unmasculine 




And that ye'll fin\ 






Oh a* ye flocks o'er a' the hills, 






By mosses, meadows, moors, and fells. 






Come, join your counsel and your skills. 






To cowe the lairds, 






And get the brutes the powers themsels 






To choose their herds. 






Then Orthodoxy yet may prance, 






And Learning in a woody dance, 


halter 




And that fell cur ca'd Common Sense, 






That bites sae sair, 


so sore 




Be banished o'er the sea to France : 






Let him bark there. 






Then Shaw's and D'rymple's eloquence, 






M' Gill's close nervous excellence, 






M'Quhae's pathetic manly sense, 






And guid M'Math, 


good 




Wi' Smith, wha through the heart can glance, 




May a' pack aff. 


off • 


TO WILLIAM SIMPSON, 




OCHILTREE. 


May 1785. 




I gat your letter, winsome Willie ; 


got 




Wi' gratefu' heart I thank you brawly ; 


heartily 




Though I maun say't, I wad be silly, 


must, would 




And unco vain, 


very 




Should I believe, my coaxin' billie, 


fellow 




Your flatterin' strain. 






But I'se believe ye kindly meant it, 






I sud be laith to think ye hinted 


should, loe'r 



50 BURNS" POEMS, 


Ironio satire, sidelins sklented 


sidelong directed 


On my poor Musie ; 




Though in sic phrasin' terms ye've penned 


it, cajoling 


I scarce excuse ye. 




My senses wad be in a creel, 


basket 


Should I but dare a hope to speel, 


climb 


Wi' Allan or wi' Gilbertfield, 




The braes o' fame ; 




Or Fergusson, the writer chiel, 


youth 


A deathless name. 




(Oh, Fergusson ! thy glorious parts 




111 suited law's dry musty arts ! 




My ban upon your whunstane hearts, 


whingtone 


Ye E'nbrugh gentry ; 


Edinburgh 


The tythe o' what ye waste at cartes 


card; 


Wad stowed his pantry !) 


filled 


Yet when a tale comes i' my head, 




Or lasses gie my heart a screed, 


give, rive 


As whiles they're like to be my deid, 


death 


(Oh sad disease !) 




I kittle up my rustic reed ; 


excite 


It gies me ease. 




Auld Coila now may fidge fu' fain, 


Kyle in Ayrshire 


She's gotten poets o' her ain, 


own 


Chiels wha their chanters winna hain, y 


ouths, pipes, spare 


But tune their lays, 




Till echoes a' resound again 




Her weel-sung praise. 




Nae poet thought her worth his while, 




To set her name in measured style ; 




She lay like some unkenn'd-of isle 


unknown. 


Beside New Holland, 




Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil 




Besouth Magellan. 


to southward of 


Ramsay and famous Fergusson 




Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon 


gave, upwards 


Yarrow and Tweed, to monie a tune, 


many 


Owre Scotland rings, 


over 


While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon, 




Naebody sings. 




Th' Illissus, Tiber, Thames, and Seine, 




Glide sweet in monie a tunefu' line ; 




But, Willie, set your fit to mine, 


foot 


And cock your crest, 




We'll gar our streams and burnies shine 


make rivulets 


Up wi' the best I 




We'll sing auld Coila's plains and fells, 


hills 


Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells, 





BURNS* PO^MS. 


SI 


Her banks and braes, her dens and dells, 




"Where glorious Wallace 




Aft bure the gree, as story tell, 


bore the bell 


Erae southron billies. 


fellows 


At Wallace' name what Scottish blood 




Bat boil3 up in spring- tide flood ! 




Oft have our fearless fathers strode 




By Wallace' side, 




Still pressing onward, red-wat shod, 


walking in blood 


Or glorious died ! 




sweet are Coila's haughs and woods 


meadows 


When lintwhite3 chant amang the buds, 


linnets 


And jinkin' hares, in amorous winds,* 




Their loves enjoy ; 




While through the braes the cushat croods 


dove coos 


With wailfu' cry ! 




Even winter bleak has charms to me 




When winds rave through the naked tree ; 




Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree 




Are hoary gray : 




Or blinding drifts wild furious fiee, 




Darkening the day ! 




Nature ! a' thy shows and forms 




To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms ! 




Whether the summer kindly warms, 




Wi' life and light, 




Or winter howls, in gusty storms, 




The lang, dark night ! 




The Muse, nae poet ever fand her, 


no, found 


Till by himsel he learned to wander, 




Adown some trotting burn's meander, 




And no think lang ; 




sweet to stray, and pensive ponder 




A heart-felt sang ! 




The war'ly race may drudge and drive, 


worldly 


Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, and strive 


jostle, push 


Let me fair Nature's face descrive, 


describe 


And I, wi' pleasure, 




Shall let the busy grumbling hive 




Bum owre their treasure. 


buzz over 


Fareweel, "my rhyme-composing brither !" 


brother 


We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither : too, unknown, each 


Now let us lay our heads thegither, 


[other 


In love fraternal ; 




May Envy wallop in a tether, 


quirer, haltai 


Black fiend internal ! 




* Kimble frisking movements of the hare. 





»J 



BURNS' POEM*. 



While Highlandmen hate tolls and taxes ; 
While moorlan' herds like guid fat braxies, 
While terra firma on her axis 

Diurnal turns, 
<^ount on a friend in faith and practice, 

In Robert Burns. 



dead sheep j 



pin 

almost, quite 



so oft have 
almost 



POSTCRIPT. 

My memory's no worth a preen ; 

I had amaist forgotten clean, 

Ye bade me write you what they mean 

By this New Light, 
'Bout which our herds sae aft hae been 

Maist like to fight. 

In days when mankind were but callans hoys 

At grammar, logic, and sic talents, such 
They took nae pains their speech to balance, 

Or rules to gie, give 

But spak their thoughts in plain braid lallans, lowland speech 

Like you or me. 

In thae auld times, they thought the moon, these 

Just like a sark, or pair o' shoon, shirt, shoes 

Wore by degrees, till her last roon paring 

Gaed past their viewing, went 
And shortly after she was done, 

They gat a new one. got 

This passed for certain — undisputed ; 
It ne'er cam i' their heads to doubt it, 
Till chiels gat up, and wad confute it 

And ca'd it wrang ; 
And muckle din there was about it, 

Baith loud and lang. 

Some herds, well learned upo' the beuk, 
Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk ; 
For 'twas the auld moon turned a neuk, 

And out o' sight, 
And backlins-comin', to the leuk 

She grew mair bright. 

This was denied— it was affirmed; 

The herds and hirsels were alarmed, 

The reverend gray-beards raved and stormed 

That beardless laddie3 
Should think they better were informed 

Then their auld daddies. 



fellows, would 

much 
both 

book 

assert, mistook 

corner 

backwards, look 



flocks 



fathers 

Frae less to mair, it gaed to sticks ; from, more 

Frae words and aiths to clours and nicks, oaths, dints and cuts 

And mony a fallow gat his licks, beating 

Wi' hearty crunt ; blows 
And some, to learn them for their tricks, 

Were hanged and brunt. burned 



BURNS' POEMS. 


88 


This game was played in monie lands, 




And Auld-Light caddies bure sic hands, 


porters bore 


That, faith, the youngsters took the sands 




Wi 1 nimble shanks, 


legs 


Till lairds forbade, by strict commands, 




Sic bluidy pranks. 


such bloody 


But New-Light herds gat sic a cowe, 




Folk thought them ruined stick-and-stowe, 


completely 


Till now amaist on every knowe a 


most, hillock 


Ye'U find ane placed ; 




And some their New-Light fair avow, 




Just quite barefaced. 




Nae doubt the Auld-Light flocks are bleatin'; 




Their zealous herds are vexed and sweatin* ; 




MyseV I've even seen them greetin' 


crying 


Wi' girnin* spite, 


grinning 


To hear the moon sae sadly lied on 




By word and write. 




But shortly they will cowe the loons ! 




Some Auld-Light herds in neebor touns 


neighbour 


Are mind't in things they ca' balloons 




To tak a night, 




And stay ae month among the moons, 


one 


And see them right. 




Guid observation they will gie them ; 




And when the auld moon's gaun to lea'e them, 


going 


The hindmost shaird, they'll fetch it wi' them, 


fragment 


Just i' their pouch, 




And when the New-Light billies see them, 


fellows 


I think they'll crouch ! 




Sae, ye observe that a' this clatter 




Is naething but a " moonshine matter ;" 


nothing 


But though dull prose-folk Latin splatter 




In logic tulzie, 


contention 


1 hope we bardies ken some better 




Than mind sic brulzie. 


such broil 


THIRD EPISTLE TO JOHN LAPRAIR. 


September 


13, 1785. 


GuiDspeed and furder to you, Johnny, 


prosperity 


Guid health, hale han's, and weather bonny; 




Now when ye're nickan down fu' canny 


cutting 


The staff o' bread, 




May ye ne'er want a stoup o' bran'y 


flagon 


To clear your head. 




May Borea3 never thrash your rigs, » 




Nor kick your rickles aff their legs, 

J 


rick* 



u 



burns' poems. 



inorasst* 

sea-weed 

topmost 

busy, active 

beating, wet 

got 

much trouble 

knife, mended 

any 



Sendin' the stuff o'er muirs and kaggs, 

Like drivin' wrack ; 
But may the tapmast grain that wags 

Come to the sack. 

I'm bizzie too, and skelpin' at it, 

But bitter, daudin* showers hae wat it, 

Sae my auld stumpie pen I gat it 

Wi' muckle wark, 
And took my jocteleg and whatt it, 

Like ony dark. 

It's now twa month that I'm your debtor, 
For your braw, nameless, dateless letter, 
Abusin' me for harsh ill nature 

On holy men, 
While not a hair yourseP ye 're better, 

But mair profane. 

But let the kirk-folk ring their bells, 
Let's sing about our noble sel's ; 
We'll cry nae jads frae heathen hills 

To help, or roose us, 
But browster wives and whisky stills, 

They are the Muses. 

Your friendship, sir, I winna quat it, 

And if ye mak objections at it, 

Then han' in nieve some day we'll knot it, 

And witness take, 
Aud when wi' usquebae we've wat it, 

It winna break. 

But if the beast and branks be spared 
Till kye be gaun without the herd, 
And a' the vittel in the yard, 

And theekit right, 
I mean your ingle-side to guard 

Ae winter night. 

Then muse-inspirin' aqua vitas 

Shall make us baith sae blythe and witty, 

Till ye forget ye re auld and gutty, 

And be as canty 
As ye were nine year less than thretty, 

Sweet ane and twenty ! 

But stooks are cowpet wi' the blast, shocks, overturned 

And now the sinn keeks in the west, sun peeps 

Then I maun rin among the rest, run 

And quat my chanter ; quit, pipei 
Sae I subscribe myself in haste, 

Your's, Rab the Ranter. 



selves 

jades 

praise 

brewer 



quit 



fist 
whisky 

curb 

cows, going 

victuals 

thatched 

fireside 

one 

both 

gouty 

cheerful 



BURN'S POEMS. 



85 



EPISTLE TO THE REV. JOHX M'MATH. 



imber 17, 1785. 
shock, reapers 
beating 

confusion 



While t the stook the shearers cower 
To shun the bitter blaudin' shower, 
Or in gulravage rinnin' Ecower 

To pass the time, 
To you I dedicate the hour 

In idle rhyme. 

My Musie, tired wi' mony a sonnet 

On gown, and ban', and douce black bonnet, sober 

Is grown richt eerie now she's done it, fearful 

Lest they should blame her, 
And rouse their holy thunder on it, 

And anathem her. 

I own t'was rash, and rather hardy, 

That I, a simple, country bardie. bard 

Should meddle wi : a pack sae sturdy, 

Wha, if they ken me, knew 

Can easy, wi r a single wordie, 

Lowse kieks upon me. loose 

But I gae mad at their grimaces. 

Their sighin', cantin', grace-proud faces, 

Their three-mile prayers, and hauf-mile graces, half 

Their raxin' conscience, stretching 

Whase greed, revenge, and pride disgraces whose 

"Waur nor their nonsense. worse than 

There's Gawn,* misca't waur than a beast, blamed 

Wha has mair honour in his breast 
Than mony scores as guid's the priest 

Wha sae abus't him ; 
And may a bard no crack his jest 

What way they've use't him ? 

See him, the poor man's friend in need, 
The gentleman in word and deed, 
And shall his fame and honour bleed 

By worthless skellums, wretches 

And not a Muse erect her head 



To cowe the blellums ? 


talkative fellows 


Oh, Pope, had I thy satire's darts 
To gie the rascals their deserts, 
I'd rip their rotten, hollow hearts, 

And tell aloud 
Their juggiin' hocus-pocus arts 

To cheat the crowd. 


give 


A* kex I'm no the thing I should be, 
Nor am I even he thing I could be, 




* Garia n«.:ri!to». 





86 BUHNS* P0EM8. 


But twenty times I rather would be 

An atheist clean, 
Than under gospel colours hid be 

Just for a screen. 




An honest man may like a glass, 
An honest man may like a lass, 
But mean revenge, and malice fause 

He'll still disdain, 
And then cry zeal for gospel laws, 

Like some we ken. 


false 


They take religion in their mouth ; 
They talk o' mercy, grace, and truth, 
For what? to gie their malice skouth 

On some puir wight, 
And hunt him down o'er right and ruth, 

To ruin straight. 


icope 
poor 


All hail, Religion ! maid divine ! 
Pardon a Muse sae mean as mine, 
Who in her rough imperfect line, 

Thus daurs to name thee ; 
To stigmatize false friends of thine 

Can ne'er defame thee. 


dareg 


Though blotch't and foul wi' mony a stain 

And far unworthy of thy train, 

With trembling voice I tune my strain 

To join with those 
Who boldly daur thy cause maintain 

In spite o' foes : 




In spite o* crowds, in spite o' mobs, 
In spite o' undermining jobs, 
In spite o' dark banditti stabs 

At worth and merit, 
By scoundrels, even wi' holy robes, 

But wicked spirit. 




Ayr ! my dear, my native ground, 
Within thy presbyterial bound 
A candid liberal band is found 

Of public teachers, 
As men, as Christians too, renowned, 

And manly preachers. 




Sir, in that circle you are named ; 
Sir, in that circle you are famed ; 
And some, by whom your doctrine's blamed 

(Which gies you honour), 
Even, sir, by them your heart's esteemed, 

And winning manner. 




Pardon thi3 freedom I have ta'en, 
And if impertinent I've been, 





BURNS POEMS. 



87 



Impute it not, good sir, in ane one 

Whase heart ne'er wrang'd ye, whose 

But to his utmost would befriend 

Ought that belang'd ye. belonged to 



TO A MOUSE, 

ON TURNING UP HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER 
1785. 

Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie, 
Oh what a panic's in thy breastie I 
Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 

Wi' bickering brattle ! hasty clatter 

I wad be laith to rin and chase thee, loath 

Wi' murd'ring pattle I ploughstaff 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
Has broken nature's social union, 
And justifies that ill opinion, 

Which makes thee startle 
At me, thy poor earth-born companion, 

And fellow mortal 1 

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve ; sometimes 

What then ? poor beastie, thou maun live ! must 

A daimen icker in a thrave ear of corn, 24 sheaves 

'S a sma request : small 

I'll get a blessin' wi' the laive, rest 

And never miss't 1 



Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin I 
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin* ! 
And naething now to big a new ane 

O' foggage green, 
And bleak December's winds ensuin', 

Baith snell and keen ! 

Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, 
And weary winter comin' fast, 
And cozie here, beneath the blast, 

Thou thought to dwell, 
Till, crash I the cruel coulter passed 

Out through thy cell. 

That wee bit heap o' leaves and ; stibble, 
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble 1 
Now thou's turned out for a' thy trouble, 

But house or hald, 

To thole the winter's sleety dribble, 

And cranreuch cauld I 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, 
In proving foresight may h$ vain : 



little 

weak walls, winds 

build 

rank grass 

both sharp 



comfortable 
ploughshare 

stubble 
many 

without, hold 

endure, drizzle 

hoar-frost 



alone 



£9 burns' poems. 



The best-laid schemes o' mice and men, 

Gang aft a-gley, 50 oft wrong 

And lea'e us nought but grief and pain, 

For promised joy. 

Still thou art blest, compared wi' me ! 

The present only toucheth thee : 

But, och I I backward cast my ee, eye 

On prospects drear 1 
And forward, though I canna see, 

I guess and fear. 



HALLOWE'EN* 

The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood ; but for 
the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the 
country where the scene is cast, notes are added, to give some account of the prin- 
cipal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the 
west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the 
history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations ; and it may bo 
gome entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such should honour the author 
with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlightened in our own. 

" Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, 
The simple pleasures of the lowly train ; 
To me more dear, congenial to my heart, 
One native charm, than all the gloss of art." 

Goldsmith.— B. 

Upon that night, when fairies light, 

On Cassilis Downansf dance, 
Or owre the lays; in splendid blaze, over, fields 

On sprightly coursers prance ; 
Or for Colean the route is ta'en, 

Beneath the moon's pale beams ; 
There, up the CoveJ to stray and rove 

Amang the rocks and streams 
To sport that night. 

Amang the bonny, winding banks, 

Where Doon rins, wimplin', clear, meandering 

Where Bruce§ ance ruled the martial ranks, once 

And shook his Carrick spear, 
Some merry, friendly, country folks 

Together did convene, 
To burn their nits, and pou their stocks, nuts, pull 

And haud their Hallowe'en hold 

Fu blythe that night. 

* Hallowe'en or All Hallow Eve is thought to be a night when witches, devils, 
and other mischief-making beings are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands ; 
particularly those aerial people, the fairies, are said on that night to hold a grand 
anniversary. — JB. 

t Certain little romantic, rocky, green hills, in the neighbourhood of the ancient 
seat of the Earls of Cassilis.— B.' 

± A noted cavern near Colean House, called the Cove of Colean; which, as well 
as Casilis Downans, is famed in country story for being a favourite haunt of 
fairies.— B. mmm , ' 

I The famous family of that name, the ancestors of Robert, the great deliverer oi 
hid country, were Earls of Carrick.-^B. 




Ik en first ana. foremost, - fk-n n-n gVi the "rail 
Hieio? stocks xnauxL a' ~be songiht anee; 

Tkej - steek then? een , axi.cL gx-aip , ancL -(rale, 
Tor nanxekle anes ani stca"u4kt axies. 

Halloire'eu. p 3.9 



burns' poems. 



The lasses feat, and cleanly neat, 

Mair braw than when they're fine ; 
Their faces blythe, fu' sweetly kythe, 

Hearts leal, and wafrn, and kin': 
The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs 

"Weel knotted on their garten, 
Some unco blate, and some wi' gabs 

Gar lasses' hearts gang startin' 
Whiles fast at night. 



trim 

show 

true 

spruce, knots 

garter 

very bashful, tongues 

make, go 

sometimes 



Then, first and foremost, through the kail, cabbage 

Their stocks* maun a' be sought ance ; [choose 

They steek their een, and graip, and wale, close, eyes, grope, 

For muckle anes and straught anes. big, straight ones 

Poor hav'rel Will fell aff the drift, fool 

And wandered through the bow-kail. cabbage 

And pou't, for want o' better shift, pulled 

A runt was like a sow-tail, stem 

Sae bow't that night. go crooked 

Then, straught or crooked, yird or nane. earth 

They roar and cry a' throu'ther ; 

The very wee things, todlin', rin tottering 

Wi' stocks out-owre their shouther : over, shoulder 

And gif the custoc's sweet or sour, if, pith 

Wi' joctelegs they taste them ; knives 
Syne coziely aboon the door, then comfortably above 

Wi' cannie care they've placed them gentle 
To lie that night. 



The auld guidwife's weel-hoordet nitsf 

Are round and round divided, 
And mony lads' and lasses' fates 

Are there that night decided : 
Some kindle, couthie, side by side, 

And burn thegither trimly ; 
Some start awa wi' saucy pride, 

And jump out-owre the chimlie 
Fu' high that night. 

Jean slips in twa wi' tentie ee ; 

Wha 'twas, she wadna tell ; 
But this is Jock, and this is me, 

She says in to herse!' : 



well-hoarded 



kindly 

together 

away 

over, chimney 

two, watchful 



* The first ceremony of Hallowe'en is pulling each a stock or plant of cabbage. 
They must go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with ; 
Its being big or little, straight or crooked, is prophetic of the size and' shape of the 
grand object of all their spells — the husband or wife. If any yird, or earth, stick 
to the root, that is tocher, or fortune; and the taste of the cus toe, that is, the heart 
of the stem, is indicative of the natural temper and disposition. Lastly, the stems, 
or, to give them their ordinary appellation, the runts, are placed somewhere above 
the head of the door, and the Christian names of people whom chance brings into 
the house are, according to the priority of placing the runts, the names in ques- 
tion.— B. 

f Burning the nuts is a famous charm. They name the lad and lass to each par- 
ticular nut as they lay them in the fire, and accordingly as they burn quietly to- 
gether, or start from beside one another, the course and i*sue of the courtship will 



BURNS* POEMS. 



He bleezed owre her, and she owre him, 

As they wad never mair part : 
Till, fuff ! he started up the lum, chimney 

And Jean had e'en a sair heart, sore 

To see't that night. 



Poor "Willie, wi' his bow kail-runt, 

Was brunt wi' primsie Mallie ; 
And Mary, nae doubt, took the drunt, 

To be compared to Willie. 
Mall's nit lap out wi' pridefu' fling, 

And her ain fit it brunt it ; 
While Willie lap, and swore, by jing, 

'Twas just the way he wanted 
To be that night. 

Nell had the fause-house in her min\ 

She pits hersel' and Rob in ; 
In loving bleeze they sweetly join, 

Till white in ase they're sobbin'. 
Nell's heart was dancin' at the view, 

She whispered Rob to leuk for't : 
Rob, stowlins, prie'd her bonny mou, 

Fu' cozie in the neuk for't, 

Unseen that night. 

But Merran sat behint their backs, 

Her thoughts on Andrew Bell ; 
She lea'es them gashin' at their cracks, 

And slips out by hersel : 
She through the yard the nearest taks, 

And to the kiln she goes then, 
And darklins graipit for the bauks, 

And in the blue-clue* throws then, 
Right fear't that night. 

And aye she win't, and aye she swat, 

I wat she made nae jaukin' ; 
Till something held within the pat, 

And then ! but she was quakin' ! 
But whether 'twas the deil himsel, 

Or whether 'twas a bauk-en*, 
Or whether it was Andrew Bell, 

She did na wait on talkin' 

To spier that night. 

Wee Jenny to her granny says, 

" Will ye go wi' me, granny ? 
I'll eat the applef at the glass 

I gat frae uncle Johnny :" 

* Whoever would, with success, try this spell, must observe these directions :— 
Steal out, all alone, to the kiln, and, darkling, throw into the pot a clue of blue yarn : 
wind it in a clue oft the old one, and, towards the latter end, something will" hold 
the thread; demand "whahauds?" that is, who holds? An answer will be returned 
from the kiln-pot, by naming the Christian and surname of your future spouse.— B. 

t Take a candle, and go alone to a looking-glass; eat an apple before it, and 
Comb your hair all the time ; the face of your conjugal companion, to be, will be 
■©en in the glass, as if peeping over your si oulder,— B. 



burnt, demure 
pet 

leapt 
own foot 



puts 
blaze 
ashes 

observe 

stealthily kissed 

snugly, nook 



conversing 



groped, cross-beami 



winded, perspired 

know, dallying 

pot 



beam-end 



Inquire 



burns' poems. 



41 



She fufft her pipe wi' sic a lunt, 
In wrath she was sae vap'rin', 

She notic't na, an aizle brunt 
Her braw new worset apron 

Out through that night. 

" Ye little skelpie-limmer's face ! 

I daur you try sic sportin', 
As seek the foul thief ony place, 

For him to spae your fortune : 
Nae doubt but ye may get a sight ! 

Great cause ye hae to fear it ; 
For mony a ane has gotten a fright, 

And lived and died deleeret 
On sic a night. 

* Ae hairst afore the Sherra-muir — 

I mind't as weel's yestreen, 
I was a gilpey then, I'm sure 

I was na past fifteen : 
The simmer had been cauld and wat, 

And stuff was unco green ; 
And aye a rantin' kirn we gat 

And just on Hallowe'en 

It fell that night." 

****** 
Then up gat fechtin' Jamie Fleck, 

And he swore by his conscience, 
That he could saw* hemp-seed a peck ; 

For it was a' but nonsense. 
The auld guidman raught down the pock, 

And out a kandfu' gied him ; 
Syne bad him slip frae 'mang the folk, 

Some time when nae ane see'd him, 
And try't that night. 

He marches through amang the stacks, 

Though he was something sturtin ; 
The graip he for a harrow taks, 

And haurls at his curpin ; 
And every now and then he says, 

" Hemp-seed, I saw thee, 
And her that is to be my lass, 

Come after me, and draw thee, 
As fast this night." 

He whistled up Lord Lennox' march, 

To keep his courage cheerie ; 
Although his hair began to arch, 

He was sae fley'd and eerie : 



blew, smoke 

so 

cinder burnt 

worsted 

wild girl 

dare 

any 

tell 



many one 
delirious 



one harvest 

well, yesterday 

young girl 

summer, cold, wet 

very 

noisy harvest-home 



fighting 

sow 

reached 
gave 
then 
saw 



timorous 
dung-fork 
drags, rear 



frightened 



* Steal out, unperceived, and sow ft handful of hemis-seed, harrowing it with 
anything 1 you can conveniently draw after you. Repeat, now and then, «' Hemp, 
feeed I saw thee, hemp-seed I saw thee ; and him (or her) that is to be my true love, 
come after me and pou thee.'' Look over your left shoulder, and you will see the 
appearance of the person invoked, in the attitude of pulling hemp. Some tradi- 
tions say, " Come after me, and shaw thee," that is, show thyself; in which case 



it simply appears, 
harrow thee.''— B, 



Others omit the harrowing, and say, a Come after me, and 



IS 



burns' poems. 



Till presently he hears a squeak, 

And then a grane and gruntle ; 
He by his shouther ga'e a keek, 

And tumbled wi' a win tie 

Out-owre that night. 

He roared a horrid murder-shout, 

In dreadfu' desperation 1 
And young and auld cam rinnin' out 

And hear the sad narration : 
He swore 'twas hilchin Jean M'Craw, 

Or crouchie Merran Humphie, 
Till, stop — she trotted through them a' — 

And wha was it but Grumphie 
Asteer that night ! 

Meg fain wad to the barn hae gaen, 

To win three wechts o' naething ;* 
But for to meet the deil her lane, 

She pat but little faith in : 
She gies the Herd a pickle nits, 

And twa red-cheekit apples, 
To watch, while for the barn she sets, 

In hopes to see Tarn Kipples 
That very night. 

She turns the key wi' canny thraw, 

And owre the threshold ventures ; 
But first on Sawny gies a ca', 

Syne bauldly in she enters : 
A ratton rattled up the wa', 

And she cried out, " Preserve her I" 
And ran through midden hole and a', 

And prayed wi' zeal and fervour, 
Fu' fast that night. 

They hoy't out Will, wi' sair advice ; urged, strong 

They heckt him some fine braw ane ; promised, one 

It chanced, the stack he faddom't thrice,f measured 

timber, twisting 

twisted 

odious-looking fellow 

let, oath 

shreds, dragging 

off his hands 



groan, <?runt 

peep 

stagger 



halting 
crook-hacked 

the pig 
astir 

would j gone 
corn-baskets 

put 
few nuts 



gentle 
over 

then boldly 
rat 



Was timmer-propt for thrawin' ; 
He taks a swirly auld moss oak 

For some black, grousome carlin ; 
And loot a winze and drew a stroke, 

Till skin in blypes cam haurlin' 
Affs nieves that night. 

A wanton widow Leezie.was, 
As canty as a kittlin ; 



merry, kitten 

* This charm must likewise be performed unperceived, and alone. You go to 
the barn, and open both doors, taking them off the hinges if possible; for there is 
danger that the being about to appear may shut the doors, and do you some mis- 
chief. Then take that instrument used in winnowing the corn w T hich, in our 
Country dialect, we call a wecht, and go through all the attitudes of letting down 
corn against the wind. Repeat it three times; and the third time an apparition 
will pass through the barn, in at the window door, and out at the other, having 
both the figure in question, and the appearance or retinue, marking the employ- 
ment or station in life.— B. 

f Take an opportunity of going, unnoticed, to a bean-stack, and fathom it three 
times round. The last fathom of the last time you will catch in your arms the tq>> 
pefcr&nco of your future conjugal yoke-fellow.—* B. 



burns' poems. 


43 


But, och ! that night, amang the shaws 


woods 


She got a fearfu' settlin' 1 


[stones 


She through the whins, and by the cairn, gorse, heap of 


And owre the hill gaed scrievin, 


went swiftly 


Where three lairds' lands meet at a burn.* 


To dip her left sark-sleeve in, 


shift 


Was bent that night. 




Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, 


sometimes, cascade 


As through the glen it wimpl't ; 


meandered 


Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays j 


cliff 


Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't ; 


eddy 


Whyles glittered to the nightly rays, 




Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle ; 


racing 


Whyles cookit underneath the braes, 


appear and disappear 


Below the spreading hazel, 




Unseen that night. 




Amang the brackens, on the brae, 


fern 


Between her and the moon, 




The deil, or else an outler quey, 


unhoused 


Gat up and gae a croon : 


moan 


Poor Leezy's heart maist lap the hocl ; 


almost, leapt, sheath 


Near lav'rock-height she jumpit, 


lark 


But mist a fit, and in the pool 


missed, foot 


Out-owre the lugs she plumpit, 


ears 


Wi' a plunge that night. 




In order, on the clean hearth-stane, 




The luggies three are ranged. 


dishes 


And every time great care is ta'en 




To see them duly changed : 




Auld uncle John, wha wedlock's joys 




Sin' Mar's yearf did desire, 




Because he gat the toom dish thrice 


empty 


He heaved them on the fire 




In wrath that night. 




•Wi' merry sangs, and friendly cracks, 




I wat they did na weary ; 


know 


And unco tales and funny jokes, 


strange 


Their sports were cheap and cheery ; 




Till butter'd so'ns,} wi' fragrant lunt, 


smoke 


Set a' their gabs a-steerin ; 


mouths 


Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt, 


then, spirits 


They parted aff careerin' 




Fu' blythe that night.§ 




* You go out, one or more, for this is a social spell, to a south running spring or 


rivulet, -where " three lairds' lands meet," and dip your left shirt-sleeve. Go to bed 


in sight of a Are, and hang your wet sleeve before it to dry. 


Lie awake: and some 


time near midnight, an apparition, having the exact figure 


of the grand object in 


question, will come and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the otr 


er side of it. — B. 


+ The year 1715, when the Earl of Mar raised an insurrection in Scotland. 
X Sowens, with butter instead of milk to them, is the Hallowe'en supper. — B. 
5 Most of these superstitious ceremonies hiwe fallen into disuse. 



44 BURNS' POEMS. 




SECOND EPISTLE TO DAVIE, 




A BROTHER POET. 




Auld Neibor, 




I'm three times doubly o'er your debtor, 




For your auld-farrant, frien'ly letter ; 


sensible 


Though 1 inaun say't,.I doubt ye flatter, 


must 


Ye speak sae fair, 




For my puir, silly, rhymin' clatter 


poor 


Some less maun sair. 


serve 


Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle ; 




Lang may your elbock jink and diddle, 


elbow 


To cheer you through the weary widdle 


bustle 


0' warly cares, 


worldly 


Till bairns' bairns kindly cuddle 


caress 


Your auld gray hairs. 




But, Davie lad, I'm red ye're glaikit ; 


guess, foolish 


I'm tauld the Muse ye hae negleckit ; 


told 


And gif it's sae, you sud be licket, if so 


, should, beaten 


Until ye fyke ; 


be restless 


Sic hauns as you sud ne'er be faiket, 


hands, wanted 


Be hain't wha like. 


spared 


For me, I'm on Parnassus' brink, 




Rivin' the words to gar them clink ; 


tearing, make 


Whyles daez't wi' love, whyles daez't wi' drink, stupined 


WT jads or masons ; 




And whyles, but aye owre late, I think, 


sometimes, too 


Braw sober lessons. 




Of a' the thoughtless son's o' man, 




Commen' me to the bardie clan ; 


poet 


Except it be some idle plan 




0' rhymin' clink, 




Nae need indeed that I sud ban, 


should 


They ever think. 




Nae thought, nae view, nae scheme o' livin*, 




Nae cares to gie us joy or grievin ;'. 




But just the pouchie put the nieve in, 


pocket, fist 


And while ought's there, 




Then hiltie skiltie, we gae scrievin', 


gleesomely 


And fash nae mair. 


trouble 


Leeze me on rhyme ! it's aye a treasure, 


blessings on 


My chief, amaist my only pleasure, 


almost 


At hame, a-fiel', at wark, or leisure ; 


in field, work 


The Muse, poor hizzie ! 


lass 


Though rough and raploch be her measure, 


coarse 


She's seldom lazy. 




Haud to the Muse, my dainty Davie : 


keep 


The warl' may play you monie a shavie J 


prank 



BURNS* POEMS. 



45 



But far the Muse, she'll never leave ye, 

Though e'er sae puir, poor 

Na, even though limpin' wi' the spavie 

Frae door to door. 



MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN. 



A DIRGE. 



When chill November's surly blast 

Made fields and forests-bare, 
One evening, as I wandered forth 

Along the banks of Ayr, 
I spied a man whose aged step 

Seemed weary, worn with care ; 
"Eis face was furrowed o'er with years, 

And hoary was his hair. 

" Young stranger, whither wanderest thou ? * 

Began the reverend sage : 
"Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, 

Or youthful pleasure's rage ? 
Or haply, prest with cares and woes, 

Too soon thou hast began 
To wander forth, with me, to mourn 

The miseries of man. 

' The sun that overhangs yon moors, 
Outspreading far and wide, 

Where hundreds labour to support 

A haughty lordling's pride : 
I've seen yon weary winter sun 

Twice forty times return, 
And every time has added proofs 

That man was made to mourn. 

H Oh, man ! while in thy early years, 

How prodigal of time ; 
Misspending all thy precious hours, 

Thy glorious youthful prime ! 
Alternate follies take the sway ; 

Licentious passions burn ; 
Which* tenfold force gives Nature's law, 

That man was made to mourn. 

u Look not alone on youthful prime, 

Or manhood's active might; 
Man then is useful to his kind, 

Supported is his right : 
But see him on the edge of life, 

With cares and sorrows worn ; 
Then age ar.d want — oh ill-matched pair t— 

Show man was made to mourn, 



*6 BURNS' poems. 



" A few seem favourites of fate, „ 
In pleasure's lap carest ; 

Yet think not all the rich and great 
Are likewise truly blest 

But, oh 1 what crowds in every land- 
All wretched and forlorn ! 

Through weary life this lesson learn- 
That man was made to mourn. 

" Many and sharp the numerous ills 

Inwoven with our frame ! 
More pointed still we make ourselves 

Regret, remorse, and shame ; 
And man, whose heaven-erected face 

The smiles of love adorn, 
Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn ! 

u See yonder poor, o'erlaboured wight, 

So abject, mean, and vile, 
Who begs a brother of the earth 

To give him leave to toil ; 
And see his lordly fellow-worm 

The poor petition spurn, 
Unmindful, though a weeping wife 

And helpless offspring mourn. 

" If I'm designed yon lordling's slave- 
By Nature's law designed — 

Why was an independent wish 
E'er planted in my mind ? 

If not, why am I subject to 
His cruelty or scorn ? 

Or why has man the will and power 
To make his fellow mourn ? 

" Yet let not this too much, my son, 

Disturb thy youthful breast ; 
This partial view of human kind 

Is surely not the last ! 
The poor, oppressed, honest man 

Had never, sure, been born, 
Had there not been some recompense 

To comfort those that mourn ! 

" Oh, Death ! the poor man's dearest friend- 

The kindest and the best ! 
Welcome the hour my aged limbs 

Are laid with thee at rest I 
The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow, 

From pomp and pleasure torn I 
But, oh I a blest relief to those 

That, weary-laden, mourn I" 



BURNS* POEMS, 


ft? 


ADDRESS TO THE DEIL. 




Oh Prince ! oh chief of many throned powers, 




That led the embattled seraphim to war. — Milton. 


Geeat is thy power, and great thy fame ; 




Far ken'd and noted is thy name ; 


known 


And though yon lowin' heugh's thy hame, 


flaming hollow 


Thou travels far ; 




And, faith ! thou's neither lag nor lame, 


slow 


Nor blate nor scaur. bashful, easily scared 


Whyles, ranging like a roaring lion, 


sometimes 


For prey a' holes and corners tryin' ; 




Whyles on the strong-winged tempest flyin' 


t 


Tirlin' the kirks ; 


uncovering 


Whyles in the human, bosom pryin', 




Unseen thou lurks. 


. 


I've heard my reverend grannie say, 




In lanely glens ye like to stray ; 




Or where auld ruined castles, gray, 




Nod to the moon, 




Ye fright the nightly wanderer's way 




Wi' eldritch croon. 


hideous moan 


When twilight did my grannie summon, 




To say her prayers, douce, honest woman ! 


grave 


Aft yont the dike she's heard you bummin* 


, wall, buzzing 


Wi' eerie drone ; 


dreary 


Or, rustlin', through the boortries comin', 


elder-trees 


Wi' heavy groan. 




Ae dreary, windy, winter night, 


one 


The stars shot down wi' sklontin' light, 


glancing 


Wi' you, mysel, I gat a fright 




Ayont the loch, 




Ye, like a rash-bush, stood in sight, 


rush 


Wi' waving sough. 


sound 


The cudgel in my nieve did shake, 


fist 


Each bristled hair stood like a stake, 




When wi' an eldritch, stoor quaick — qua Ick, 


frightful, hoarse 


Amang the springs, 




Awa ye squattered, like a drake, 


fluttered 


On whistling wings. 




Let warlocks grim, and withered hags, 




Tell how wi' you, on ragweed nags, 


ragwort 


They skim the muirs and dizzy crags, 




Wi' wicked speed ; 




And in kirkyards renew their leagues 




Owre howkit dead. 


over excavated 


Thence countra wives, wi' toil and pain, 


country 


May plunge and plunge the kirn in vain ; 


churn 


For, oh 1 the yellow treasure's taen 


taken 


By witching skill 





48 



burns' poems. 



And dawtit, twal-pint Hawkie's gaen 
As yell's the bill. * * * 



petted, twelve, become 
milkless, bul] 



When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord, thaws 

And float the jinglin' icy boord, 

Then water-kelpies haunt the foord, water-spirits 

By your direction ; 
And 'nigh ted travellers are allured 

To their destruction. 

And aft your moss-traversing spunkies Will o' the Wisp 

Decoy the wight that late and drunk is : 

The bleezin', wild, mischevious monkeys blazing 

Delude his eyes, 
Till in some miry slough he sunk is, 

Ne'er mair to rise. more 

When mason's mystic word and grip, 
In storms and tempests raise you up, 
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop, 

Or, strange to tell 1 
The youngest brother ye wad whip 

Aff straught youesel. 

Langsyne, in Eden's bonny yard, 
When youthfu' lovers first were paired, 
And all the soul of love they shared, 

The raptured hour, 
Sweet on the fragrant flowery swaird, sward 

In shady bower. 

Then you, ye auld sneck-drawing dog 1 old stealthy 

Ye came to Paradise incog., 

And played on man a cursed brogue, trick 

(Black be your fa !) 
And gied the infant warld a shog, gave, shake 

'Maist ruined a'. 

D'ye mind that day, when in a bizz, [hair 

Wi' reekit duds, and reestit gizz, smoked clothes, withered 
Ye did present your smootie phiz diity 

'Mang better folk, 
And sklented on the man of Uzz glanced 

Your spitefu' joke ? 

And how ye gat him i' your thrall, 
And brak him out o' house and hall, 
While scabs and blotches did him gall, 

Wi' bitter claw, 
And lows'd his ill-tongued, wicked scawl, 

Was warst ava ? 



scolding wife 
worst of all 



But a' your doings to rehearse, 
Your wily snares and fechtin' fierce, 
Sin' that day Michael did you pierce, 
Down to this time, 



fighting 



BURNS POEMS. 



43 



Wad ding a Lallan tongue, or Erse, 
In prose or rhyme. 

And now, auld Cloots, I ken ye're thinkin', 
A certain' bardie's rantin', drinkin', 
Some luckless hour will send him linkhV 

To your black pit ; 
But, faith ! he'll turn a corner jinkin', 

And cheat you yet. 

But fare-you-weel, auld Niekie-ben ! 
O wad ye tak a thought and men' 1 
Ye aiblins might — I dinna ken — 

Still hae a stake — 
I'm wae to think upo' yon den, 

Even for your sake I 



beat, Lowland, 
[Highland 

know 



suddenly 



perhaps 



TO JAMES SMITH, 

11 Friendship ! mysterious cement of the soul ! 
Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society I 
I owe thee much •" — Blaib, 

Dear Smith, the slee'est, paukie thief, sJy, wheedling 

That e'er attempted stealth or rief, robbery 

Ye surely hae some warlock-breef spell 

Owre human hearts ; 

For ne'er a bosom yet was prief proof 

Against your arts. 

For me, I swear by sun and moon, 

And every star that blinks aboon, twinkles 

Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoon shoes 

Just gaun to see you ; going 

And every ither pair that's done, other 

Mair ta'en I'm wi' you. more taken 

That auld capricious carlin, Nature, woman 

To mak amends for scrimpit stature, stinted 

She's" turned you afif, a human creature 

On her first plan ; 
And in her freaks, on every feature 

She's wrote, the Man. 

Just now I've ta'en the fit o' rhyme, 

My barmie noddle's working prime, yeasty 

My fancy yerkit up sublime fermented 

Wi' hasty summon : 
Hae ye a leisure-moment's time 

To hear what's comin' ? 

Some rhyme a neighbour's name to lash ; 
Some rhyme (vain thought !) for needfu' cash ; 
Some rhyme to court the country clash, gossip 

And raise a din ; 



00 



BURNS* POEMS. 



For me, an aim I never fash — trouble 

I rhyme for fun. 

The star that rules my luckless lot, 

Has fated me the russet coat, 

Condemned my fortune to the groat ; fourpence 

But in requit, 
Has blest me wi' a random shot 

O' country wit. 

This while my notion's ta'en a sklent, bent 

To try my fate in guid black prent ; print 
But still the mair I'm that way bent, 

Something cries " Hoolie ! gently 

I red you, honest man, tak tent I warn, cara 

Ye '11 shaw your folly. shov* 

" There's ither poets much your betters, 
Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters, 
Hae thought they had insured their debtors 

A' future ages ; 
Now moths deform in shapeless tatters 

Their unknown pages." 

Then farewell hope3 o' laurel-boughs 
To garland my poetic brows ! 
Henceforth I'll rove where busy ploughs 

Are whistling thrang, 
And teach the lanely heights and howes 

My rustic sang. 

I'll wander on, with tentless heed 
How never-halting moments speed, 
Till fate shall snap the brittle thread ; 

Then, all unknown, 
I'll lay me with the inglorious dead, 

Forgot and gone 1 

But why o' death begin a tale ? 
Just now we're living sound and hale, 
Then top and maintop crowd the sail, 

Heave care o'er side I 
And large before enjoyment's gale, 

Let's tak the tide. 

This life, sae far's I understand, 
1'3 a' enchanted fairy land, 
Where pleasure is the magic wand, 

That, wielded right, 
Maks hours like minutes, hand-in-hand, 

Dance by fu' light. 

The magic wand then let us wield ; 

For, ance that five-and-forty's speel'd, once, climbed 

See, erazy, weary, joyless eild, age 

"Wi' wrinkled face, 



busy 
lonely, hollows 



careless 



BU11NS POEMS. 61 



Comes hostin', hirplin' owre the field, coughing, limping 
Wi' creepin' pace. [o'er 

When ance life's day draws near the gloainiii', twiligm 
Then fareweel vacant careless.roarnin' ; 
And fareweel cheerful' tankards foamin', 

And social noise ; 
And fareweel dear, deluding woman ! 

The joy of joys 1 

Oh, Life 1 how pleasant in thy morning, 
Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning ! 
Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning, 

We frisk away, 
Like schoolboys, at the expected warning, 

To joy and play. 

We wander there, we wander here, 
We eye the rose upon the brier, 
Unmindful that the thorn is near, 

Among the leaves ! 
And though the puny wound appear, 

Short while it grieves. 

Some, lucky, find a flowery spot, 
For which they never toiled or swat ; 
They drink the sweet and eat the fat, 

But care or pain ; without 

And, haply, eye the barren hut 

With high disdain. 

With steady aim some Fortune chase ; 

Keen Hope does every sinew brace ; 

Through fair, through foul, they urge the race, 

And seize the prey : 
Then cannie, in some cozie place, quietly, snug 

They close the day. 

And others, like your humble servan', 
Poor wights ! nae rules nor roads observin' ; 
To right or left, eternal swervin', 

They zig-zag on ; 
Till, curst with age, obscuro and starvin', 

They aften groan. oft 

Alas ! what bitter toil and straining — 
But truce with peevish, poor complaining ! 
Is Fortune's fickle Luna waning ? 

E'en let her gang ! go 

Beneath what light she has remaining, 

Let's sing our sang. 

My pen I here fling to the door, 

And kneel, " Ye Powers," and warm implore, 

<k Though I should wander Terra o'er, 

In all her climes, 
Grant me but this, I ask no more, 

Aye rowth o' rhymes. abun&anca 



61 



BURNS POEMS. 



" Gie dreeping roasts to country lairds, chipping 

Till icicles hing frae their beards ; 

Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guard?, clothes 

And maids of honour ! 

And yill and whisky gie to cairds, ale, tinkers 

Until they sconner. are nauseated 

" A title, Dempster merits it ; 

A garter gie to Willie Pitt ; 

Gie wealth to some be-ledgered cit, give 

In cent, per cent.; 
But give me real, sterling wit, 

And I'm content. 

M While ye are pleased to keep me hale, healthy 

I'll sit down o'er my scanty meal, 

Be't water-brose, or muslin kail, broth 

Wi' cheerfu' face, 
As lang's the Muses dinna fail 

To say the grace." 

An anxious ee I never throws eye 

Behint my lug or by my nose ; ear 

J jouk beneath Misfortune's blow3 shy away 

As weel's I may ; 
Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose, 

I rhyme away. 

Oh ye douce folk, that live by rule, sober 

Grave, tideless-blooded, calm and cool, 
Compared wi' you — oh fool ! fool ! fool I 

How much unlike ; 
Your hearts are just a standing pool, 

Your lives a dike ! *&U 

Nae hairbrained, sentimental traces, 
In your unlettered nameless faces 1 
In arioso trills and graces 

Ye never stray, 
But gravissimo, solemn basses 

Ye hum away. 

Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye're wise ; 

Nae ferly though ye do despise wono>* 

The hairum-scairum, ram-stam boys, hairbrained, forward 

The rattling squad : 
I see you upward cast your eyes — 

— Ye ken the road. 

Wliilst I— but I shall haud me there — 
Wi' you I'll scarce gang onywhere — 
Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair, 

But quat my sang, qalt 

Content with you to mak a pair, 

Whare'er I gang. 



BURNS' POEMS. 


08 


THE VISION. 




DUAN FIRST.* 




The sun had closed the winter day, 




The curlers"!" quat their roaring play, 


quit 


And hunger'd maukin ta'en her way 


hare 


To kail-yards green, 


cabbage 


While faithless snaws ilk step betray 


snows, each 


Whare she has been. 




The thrasher's weary flingin' tree 


flail 


The lee-lang day had tired me ; 


live-long 


And when the day had closed his ee, 


eye 


Far i' the west, 




Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie, 


inner-room 


I gaed to rest. 


went 


There, lanely by the ingle-cheek, 


lonely, fireside 


I sat and eyed the spewing reek, 


smoke 


That filled wi' hoast-provoking smeek 


cough, smoke 


The auld clay biggin' ; 


house 


And heard the restless rattons squeak 


rats 


About the riggin'. 




All in this mottie, misty clime, 


full of motes 


I backward mused on wasted time, 




How I had spent my youthfu' prime, 




And done nae thing, 




But stringin' blethers up in rhyme, 


nonsense 


For fools to sing. 




Had I to guid advice but harkit, 


hearkened 


I might, by this, hae led a market, 


ere 


Or strutted in a bank, and clarkit 


clerked 



My cash-account : 
While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit, started 

Is a' the amount. 

I started, muttering, blockhead ! coof I fool 

And heaved on high my waukit loof, hardened palm 

To swear by a' yon starry roof, 

Or some rash aith, oath 

That I henceforth would be rhyme-proof, 

Till my last breath — 

When, click ! the string the snick did draw ; latch 

And, jee ! the door gaed to the wa' ; went 

And by my ingle-lowe I saw, fire-flame 

Now bleezin' bright. blazing 

A tight, outlandish hizzie, braw, woman 

Come full in sight. 

* Buan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See 
Ids " Cath-Loda," vol. ii. of M-'Pherson's translation.— B. 

j A game on the ice nearly resembling bowls j large stones, smooth on the bottonv 
aire hurled along the ice instead of bowls. 



BURNS POEMS. 



Ye needna doubt I held my whist; *ongue 

The infant aith, half-formed was crusht; 

I glowr'd as eerie's I'd been dusht stared, strucK down 

In some wild glen ; 
"When sweet, like modest Worth, she blusht, 

And stepped ben. ia 

Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs 
Were twisted gracefu' round her brows ; 
I took her for some Scottish Muse, 

By that same token, 
And come to stop those reckless vows, 

Would soon been broken. 

A " hairbrained, sentimental trace" 
Was strongly marked in her face ; 
A wildly-witty, rustic grace 

Shone full upon her; 
Her eye, even turned on empty space, 

Beam'd keen with honour. 

Down flowed her robe, a tartan sheen, 
Till half a leg was scrimply seen ; 
And such a leg ! my bonny Jean 

Could only peer it ; 
Sae straught, sae taper, tight and clean, straight, neat 

Nane else cam near it. none 

Her mantle large, of greenish hue, 

My gazing wonder chiefly drew ; 

Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw 

A lustre grand ; 
And seemed to my astonished view 

A well-known land. 

Here, rivers in the sea were lost ; 
There,.mountains to the skies were tost: 
Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast 

With surging foam ; 
There, distant shone Art's lofty boast — 

The lordly dome. 

Here Doon pour'd down his far-fetched floods ; 

There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds : sounds 

Auld hermit Ayr staw through his wood?, stole 

On to the shore, 
And many a lesser torrent scud3 ions quickly 

W 7 ith seeming roar. 

Low in a sandy valley spread, 

An ancient borough reared her h:ad (Ayr) 

Still, as in Scottish story read, 

She boasts a race, 
To every nobler virtue bred, 

And polished grace. 

By stately tower or palace fair, 
Or ruins pendant in the air, 



BURNS POEMS. 



Bold stems of heroes, here and there, 

I could discern ; 
Some seemed to muse, some seemed to dare, 

With feature stern. 



My heart did glowing transport feel, 

To see a race heroic wheel, 

And brandish round the deep-dyed steel 

In sturdy blows ; 
While back-recoiliug seemed to reel 

Their suthron foes. 

His country's saviour, mark him well ! 
Bold Richardton's herioc swell ; 
The chief on Sark who glorious fell 

In high command; 
And he whom ruthless fates expel 

His native land. 

There, where a sceptered Pictish shade* 
Stalked round his ashes lowly laid, 
I mark'd a martial race, portrayed 

In colours strong ; 
Bold, soldier-featured, undismayed 

They strode along. 

Through many a wild romantic grove, 
Near many a hermit-fancied cove 
(Fit haunts for friendship or for love), 

In musing mood, 
An aged judge, I saw him rove, 

Dispensing good. 

With deep-struck reverential awe, 
The learned sire and son I saw,")" 
To Nature's God and Nature's law 

They gave their lore, 
This, all its source and end to draw ; 

That, to adore. 

Brydone's brave ward I well could spy, 
Beneath old Scotia's smiling eye ; 
Who called on Fame, low standing by, 

To hand him on, 
Where many a patriot-name on high, 

And hero shone 



(the Wallaces) 



southern 
(Wm. "Wallace) 

(Wallace of Craigie) 



vthe Montgomeries; 
(Barskimming) 



'Col. Fullertoa) 



DUAN SECOND. 

With musing-deep, astonished stare, 
I viewed the heavenly-seeming fair ; 
A whispering throb did witness bear 
Of kindred sweet, 

* Coilus, king of the Picts, from whom fhe district of Kvle is said to take its 
Df»me, lies buried, as tradition says,- near the family seat of the Montgomeries ol 
Coilstteld, where his burial-place is still shown.— B. 

+ The Rev. Dr Matthew Stewart, the celebrated mathematician, and his son. Pro* 
feasor Dugald Stewart. 



M burns' poems. 

"When with an elder sister's air 
She did me greet, 

u All hail ! my own inspired bard ! 
In me thy native Muse regard ! 
Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard, 

Thus poorly low 
I come to give thee such reward 

As we bestow. 

" Know, the great genius of this land 
Has many a light, aerial band, 
Who, all beneath his high command, 

Harmoniously , 
As arts or arms they understand, 

Their labours ply. 

u They Scotia's race among them share ; 
Some fire the soldier on to dare ; 
Some rouse the patriot up to bear 

Corruption's heart : 
Some teach the bard, a darling care, 

The tuneful art. 

"'Mong swelling floods of. reeking gore, 
They, ardent, kindling spirits, pour ; 
Or, 'mid the venal senate's roar, 

They, sightless, stand, 
To mend the honest patriot-lore, 

And grace the hand. 

" And when the bard, or hoary sage, 
Charm or instruct the future age, 
They bind the wild, poetic rage 

In energy, 
Or point the inconclusive page 

Full on the eye. 

" Hence Fullarton, the brave and young ; 
* Hence Dempster's zeal-inspired tongue ; 
Hence sweet harmonious Beattie sung 

His * Minstrel lays ;' 
Or tore, with noble ardour stung, 
The sceptic's bays. 

" To lower orders are assigned 
The humbler ranks of humankind, 
The rustic bard, the labouring hind, 

The artizan ; 
All choose, as various they're inclined, 

The various man. 

" When yellow waves the heavy grain, 
The threatening storm some, strongly, rein j 
Some teach to meliorate the plain, 

With tillage skill ; 
And some instruct the shepherd- train, 

blithe o'er the hill. 



BURNS' POEMS. &T 



" Some hint the lover's harmless wile ; 
Some grace the maiden's artless smile ; 
Some soothe the labourer's weary toil* 

For humble gains, 
And make his cottage-scenes beguile 

His cares and pains. 

" Some, bounded to a district-space, 
Explore at large man's infant race. 
To mark the embryotic trace 

Of rustic bard ; 
And careful note each opening grace, 

A guide and guard. 

* Of these am I — Coila my name ; 
And this district as mine I claim, 
Where once the Campbells, chiefs of fame ? 

Held ruling power : 
I marked thy embryo tuneful flame, 
Thy natal hour. 

" With future hope, I oft would gaze, 

Fond, on thy little early ways, 

Thy rudely-carrolled, chiming phrase, 

In uncouth rhymes, 
Fired at the simple, artless lays, 

Of other times. 

u I saw thee seek the sounding shore, 
Delighted with the dashing roar ; 
Or when the north his fleecy store 

Drove through the sky, 
I saw grim Nature's visage hoar 

Struck thy young eye. 

" Or when the deep green-mantled earth 
Warm cherished every floweret's birth, 
And joy and music pouring forth 

In every grove, 
I saw thee eye the general mirth 

With boundless lore. 

" When ripened fields, and azure skies, 
Called forth the reaper's rustling noise, 
I saw thee leave their evening joys, 

And lonely stalk, 
To vent thy bosom's swelling rise 

In pensive walk. 

" AVhen youthful love, warm-blushing, strong 
Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, 
Those accents, grateful to thy tongue, 

Th' adored Name, 
I taught thee how to pour in song, 

To soothe thy flame. 

" I saw thy pulse's maddening play, 
Wild send thee Pleasure's devious way, * 



58 BURNS* P0KM8. 

Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray, 
By Passion driven ; 

But yet the light that led astray 

Was light from Heaven. 

" T taught thy manners painting strains, 
The loves, the wants of simple swains, 
Till now, o'er all my wide domains 

Thy fame extends ; 
And some, the pride of Coila's plains, 

Become thy friends. 

" Thou canst not learn, nor can I show, 
To paint with Thomson's landscape glow ; 
Or wake the bosom-melting throe, 

With Shenstone's art; 
Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow 

Warm on the heart. 

* Yet, all beneath the unrivalled rose, 

The lowly daisy sweetly blows ; 

Though large the forest's monarch throws 

His army shade, 
Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows 

Adown the glade. 

" Then never murmur nor repine ; 
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine ; 
And, trust me, not Potosi's mine, 

Nor king's regard, 
Can give a bliss o'er matching thine, 

A rustic bard. 

" To give my counsels all in one — 
Thy tuneful flame still careful fan ; 
Preserve the dignity of man, 

With soul erect ; 
And trust, the universal plan 

Will all protect. 

" And wear thou this " — she solemn said. 
And bound the holly round my head . 
The polished leaves, and berries red, 

Did rustling play ; 
And, like a passing thought, she fled 

In light away. 



ADDITIONAL STANZAS OF " THE VISION." 

A manuscript in Burns' handwritings containing additional stanzas of " The 
Vision," is now in the possession of Mr John Dick, bookseller, Ayr ; it seems to be 
the manuscript sent by Burns to Mrs Stewart of Stair, when contemplating his 
Vest-Indian voyage. 

By Mr Dick's kind permission we are enabled to give the additional stanzas her«. 

After 18th stanza of printed copies : 

With secret throes I marked that earth, 
That cottage, witness of my birth ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 



(the Montgomerie*} 



And near 1 saw, bold issuing forth 

In youthful pride, 
A Lindsay, race of noble worth, 

Famed far and Tide. 

Where, hid behind a spreading wood, 
An ancient Pict-built mansion stood, 
I spied, among an angel brood, 

A female pair; 
Sweet shone their high maternal blood 

And father's air. (Sundnim) 

An ancient tower to memory brought (Stair) 

How Dettingen's bold hero fought ; 
Still far from sinking into nought, 

It owns a lord 
Who " far in western"* climates fought, 

With trusty sword. 

There, where a sceptred Pictish shade 
Stalked round his ashes lowly laid, 
I saw a martial race portrayed 

In colours strong ; 
Bold, sodger-featured, undismayed, 

They stalked along. 

Among the rest I well could spy 
One gallant, graceful, martial boy, 
The sodger sparkled in his eye, 

A diamond water ; 
I blest that noble badge with joy 

That owned me fraterj 

After the 20th stanza : 

Near by arose a mansion fine, (Auchinleck) 

The seat of many a Muse divine ; 
Not rustic Muses such as mine, 

With holly crowned, 
But th' ancient, tuneful, laurelled Nine, 

From classic ground. 

I mourned the card that Fortune dealt, 

To see where bonny Whitefoords dwelt ; (Ballochmyle) 

But other prospects made me melt, 

That village near ; Qlauchline) 

There Nature, Friendship, Love I felt, 

Fond mingling dear. 



Hail ! Nature's pang, more strong than death ! 
Warm Friendship's glow, like kindling wrath ! 
Love, dearer than the parting breath 
Of dying friend ! 

* These words are written over the original in another hand. 
^ t Captain James Montgomery, Master of St James's Lodge, Tarbolton, to which 
iht author has the honour to belong. — B. 



• BURNS' POEMft. 


" Not even r * with life's wild devious path, 




Your force shall end I 




The power that gave the soft alarms, 




In blooming Whitefoord's rosy charms, 




Still threats the tiny-feathered anns, 




The barbed dart, 




While lovely Wilhelmina warms 




The coldest heart.! 




After the 21st— 




Where Lugar leaves his moorland plaid, 


(Cumnock) 


Where lately Want was idly laid 




I marked, busy, bustling Trade, 




In fervid flame, 




Beneath a patroness's aid, 




Of noble name ; 




While countless hills I could survey, 




And countless flocks as well as they ; 




But other scenes did charms display, 




That better please, 




Where polished manners dwelt with Gray 


(Mrs F.Gray) 


In rural ease. 




Where Cessnock pours with gargling sound, 


(Auchinskietti) 


And Irwine, marking out the bound, 




Enamoured of the scenes around, 




Slow runs his race, 




A name I doubly honoured found, 


(Caprington) 


With knightly grace. 




Brydone's brave ward, I saw him stand, 


(CoL FuUarton) 


Fame humbly offering her hand ; 




And near his kinsman's rustic band, 


(Dr Fullarton) 


With one accord, 




Lamenting their late blessed land 




Must change its lord. 




The owner of a pleasant spot, 




Near sandy wilds I did him note ; 


(Orangefield) 


A heart too warm, a pulse too hot, . 




At times o'erran ; 




But large in every feature wrote, 




Appeared the man. 




• Originally written '* only." 




♦ Miss Wilhelmina Alexander, the ** Boaay Lass of Ballochmyle " 



burns' poems. 


61 


SCOTCH DRINK. 




* G-ie him strong drink, until he wink, 




That's sinking in despair; 




And liquor guidto fire his bluid, 




Thars prest wi' grief and care ; 




There let him boose and deep carouse, 




Wi* bumpers flowing o'er, 




Till he forgets his loves or debts, 




And minds his griefs no more." 




Let other poets raise a fracas 




'Bout vines, and wines, and drucken Bacchus, 




And crabbit names and stories wrack us, 


crabbec,vex 


And grate our lug, 


ear 


I sing the juice Scotch beare can mak us, 


barley 


In glass or jug. 




thou, my Muse ! guid auld Scotch drink ; 




Whether through winrplm' worms thou jink, 


twisting, turn 


Or, richly brown, ream o'er the brink, 


cream 


In glorious faem, 


foam 


Inspire me, till I lisp and wink, 




To sing thy name 1 




Let husky wheat the haughs adorn, 


valleys 


And aits set up their awnie horn, 


oats, bearded 


And peas and beans, at e en or morn, 




Perfume the plain, 




Leeze me on thee, John Barleycorn, 


blessings on 


Thou king o' grain 1 




On thee aft Scotland chows her cood, 


che^vs, cud 


In souple scones, the wale o' food I supple cakes, choice 


Or tumbling in the boilin' flood 




Wi' kail and beef; 


cabbage 


But when thou pours thy strong heart's bloot 


, 


There thou shine's chief. 




Food fills the wame, and keeps us livin' 


bellj 


Though life's a gift no worth receirin', 




AVhen heavy dragg'd wi' pine and grievin' ; 


pain 


But, oiled by thee, 




The wheels o' life gae down-hill scrievin', 


swiftly 


Wi' rattling glee. 




Thou clears the head o' doited Lear ; s 


t lipid, learning 


Thou cheers the heart o' drooping Care ; 




Thou strings the nerves o' Labour sair, 


sore 


At's weary toil ; 




Thou even brightens dark Despair 




Wi 1 gloomy smile. 




Aft clad in massy siller weed, 


tn silver mugs 


Wi f gentles thou erects thy head ; 




Yet humbly kind in time o' need, 


(beer) 


The poor man's wine, 




His wee drap parritch, or his bread, 




Thou kitchens fine. 


givest relish to 



62 BURNS' POEMS. 


Thou art the life o' public haunts ; 




But thee, what were our fairs and rants ? 


without 


Even godly meetings o' the saunts, 


saints 


By thee inspired, 




When gaping they besiege the tents, 




Are doubly fired. 




That merry night we got the corn in, 




sweetly then thou reams the horn in I 


froths 


Or reekin' on a New-year morning 


smoking 


In cog or bicker, 


wooden vessels 


And just a wee drap sp'ritual burn in. 


spirits 


And gusty sucker 1 


savoury sugar 


When Vulcan gies his bellows breath. 




And ploughmen gather wi' their graith, 


implements 


Oh rare! to see thee fizz and freath. 


froth 


I' the lugget caup ! 


eared cup 


Then Burnewin comes on like death 


blacksmith 


At every chap. 


blow 


INTae mercy, then, for aim or steel ; 


iron 


The brawnie, bainie, ploughman chiel, 


bony 


Brings hard owerhip, wi' sturdy wheel, 




The strong forehammer, 




Till block and studdie ring and reel 


anvii 


Wi* dinsome clamour. 




When neebors anger at a plea, 




And just as wud as wud can be, 


mad 


How easy can the barley-bree 


juice 


Cement the quarrel ! 




Its aye the cheapest lawyer's fee 




To taste the barrel. 




Alake ! that e'er my Muse has reason 




To wyte her countrymen wi' treason ! 


blame 


But monie daily weet their weason 


many, wet, throat 


Wi' liquors nice, 




And hardly, in a winter's season, 




E'er spier her price. 


ask 


Wae worth that brandy, burning trash ! 


woe 


Fell source o' monie a pain and brash ! 


sickness 


Twins monie a poor, doylt, drucken hash, 


deprives, stupid, 


0' half his days; 


[fool 


And sends, beside, auld Scotland's cash 




To her warst faes. 


foes 


Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scotland well, 




Ye chief, to you my tale I tell, 




Poor plackless fellows like mysel', 


moneyless 


It sets you ill, 




Wi' bitter, dearthfu' wines to mell, high-priced, meddl' 


Or foreign gill. 





BURNS POEMS. 



63 



Thee, Ferintosh ! oh sadly lost ! 
Scotland lament frae coast to coast ! 
Now colic grips, and barkin' hoast, 

May kill us a' ; 
For loyal Forbes' chartered boas-t 

Is ta'en awa I* 

Fortune I if thou'll but gie me still 
Hale breeks, a scone, and whisky gill, 
And rowth o' rhyme to rave at will, 

Tak a' the rest, 
And deal't about as thy blind skill 

Directs thee best. 



cough 



whole breeches, cake 
abundance 



THE AUTHOR'S EARNEST CRY AND PRAYER 

TO THE SCOTCH REPRESENTATIVES IN THE HOUSE OF 
COMMONS. 

" Dearest of distillation ! last and best ! 
How thou art lost !"— Parody os Miltow. 



Ye Irish lords, ye knights and squires, 
Wha represent our brughs and shires, 
And doucely manage our affairs 

In parliament, 
To you a simple Bardie's prayers 

Are humbly sent. 

Alas ! my roopit Muse is hearse ! 

Your honour's heart wi' grief 'twad pierce, 

To see her sittin', 

Low i' the dust, 
&nd screechin' out prosaic verse, 

And like to burst ! 

Tell them wha hae the chief direction, 
Scotland and me's in great affliction, 
E'er sin' they laid that fell restriction 

On aqua vitae ; 
And rouse them up to strong conviction, 

And move their pity. 

Stand forth, and tell yon Premier youth, 

The honest, open, naked truth : 

Tell him o' mine and Scotland's drouth, 

His servants humble : 
Mat eveey breeze but blaw ye south, 

If ye dissemble. 

Does ony great man glunch and gloom ? 
Speak out, and never fash your thoom ! 
Let posts and pensions sink or soom 

Wi' them wha grant 'em : 



who,burgha 
soberly 



hoarse 



screaming 



have 



(Pitt) 
thirst 



frown 

trouble, thumb 
swim 



* Alluding to the privilege possessed by the Ferintosh Distillery of distiiliDp 
shi-iky free of duty; the privilege waa abolished in 17eo. 



64 



BURNS POEMS. 



If honestly they caima come, 

Far better want 'em. 

In gath'rin' votes you were na slack ; 

Now stand as tightly by your tack ; hold 

Ne'er claw your lug, and fidge your back, scratch, ear, fidget 

And hum and haw ; 
But raise your arm, and tell your crack, speech 

Before them a\ 

weeping, thistle 

empty 

bustle 

still 



Paint Scotland greetin' ower her thrissle, 
Her mutchkin stoup as toom's a whistle ; 
And each exciseman in a bussle, 

Seizin* a stell, 
Triumphant crushin't like a mussel 

Or lampit shell. 

Then on the tither hand present her, 

A blackguard smuggler, right behint her 

And cheek-for-chow a chuffie vintner, 

Colleaguing join, 
Picking her pouch as bare as winter 

Of a' kind coin. 

Is there, that bears the name o' Scot, 
But feels his heart's bluid rising hot, 
To see his poor auld mither's pot 

Thus dung in staves, 
And plundered o' her hindmost groat 

By gallows knaves ? 

Alas ! I'm but a nameless wight, 

Trod i' the mire out o' sight ! 

But could I like Montgomeries fight, 

Or gab like Boswell, 
There's some sark-necks I wad draw tight, 

And tie some hose well. 

But bless your honours, can you see't, 
The kind, auld, cantie carlin greet, 
And no get warmly to your feet, 

And gar them hear it, 
And tell them with a patriot heat, 

Ye winna bear it ? 

Some o' you nicely ken the laws, 
To round the period and pause, 
And wi' rhetoric clause on clause 

To mak harangues ; 
Then echo through Saint Stephen's wa's 

Auld Scotland's wrangs. 

Dempster, a true blue Scot I'se war-ran' ; 
Thee, aith-detesting, chaste Kilkerran ; 
And that glib-gabbet Highland baron, 
The Laird o' Graham ; 



shell-fish 
other 

fat-faced 



knocked 



talk 
shirt 



cheerful old wife 
make 



walls 



oath 
ready-tongued 



13 URNS* POEMS. 



And ane, a chr.p that's seal auldfarran, 
Dundas his name. 

Erskine, a spunkie Norland billie ; 
True Campbells, Frederick and Hay ; 
And Livingstone, the bauld Sir Willie ; 

And mony ithers, 
Whom auld Demosthenes or Tully 

Might own for brithers. 

See, sodger Hugh, my watchman stented, 

If bardies e'er are represented ; 

I ken if that your sword were wanted, 

Ye'd lend a hand, 
But when there's ought to say anent it, 

Ye're at a stand. 

Arouse, my boys ! exert your mettle, 
To get auld Scotland back her kettle ; 
Or faith ! I'll wad my new plough-pettle, 

Ye'll see't or lang, 
She'll teach you wi' a reekin' whittle, 

Anither sang. 

This while she's been in crankous mood. 
Her lost militia fired her bluid ; 
(I wuss they never mair do guid, 

Played her that pliskie !) 
And now she's like to rin red-wud 

About her whisky. 

Besides ! if ance they pit her tilTt, 
Her tartan petticoat she'll kilt, 
And durk and pistol at her belt, 

She'll tak the streets, 
And rin her whittle to the hilt 

I' th' first she meets ! 

Foe ont sake then speak her fair, 
And straik her cannie wi' the hair, 
And to the muckle house repair, 

Wi' instant speed, 
And strive, wi' a' your wit and lear, 

To get remead. 



sagacious 

spirited fellow 

hold 
others 

brothers 
appointed 

know 

regarding it 



pledge, ploughstick 

ere 

knife 

fretful 

wish 

trick 

run mad 

put, to it 
tuck up 



knife 



stroke, gently 
big 

learning 
remedy 

tinkei' 



Yon ill-tongued tinkler, Charlie Fox, 
May taunt you wi' his jeers and mocks ; 
Put gie him"t het, my hearty cocks ! 

E'en cow the cadie I 
And send him to his dicing box 

And caneeeed lady. 

Tell yon guid bluid o' auld Boconnock's,* good blood 

I'll be his debt twa mashlum bannocks, mixed grain, cakes 
And drink his health in auld Xanse Tinnock's 
Nine times a week, 

* Pitt's grandfather was Robert Pitt of Boconnocfc. 



hot 

feilow 



ill-natured 



63 



BURNS* POEMS. 



If he some scheme, like tea and wirmocks, 
Wad kindly seek. 

Could he some commutation broach, 
111 pledge my aith in guid braid Scotch, 
He need na fear their foul reproach, 

Nor erudition, 
Yon mixtie-maxtie queer hotch-potch, 

The Coalition. 

Auld Scotland has a raucle tongue ; 
She's just a bandy wi' a rung ; 
And if she promise auld or young 

To tak their part, 
Though by the neck she should be strung, 

She'll no desert. 

And now, ye chosen Five-and- Forty, 
May still your mither's heart support ye ; 
Then, though a minister grow dorty, 

And kick your place, 
Ye'll snap your fingers poor and hearty, 

Before his face. 

God bless your honours a' your days, 
Wi' sowps o' kail and brats o' claise, 
In spite o' a' the thievish kaes 

That haunt St Jamie's ! 
Your humble Poet sings and prays, 

While Rab his name is. 



windows 



oath 

mixture, broth 

rash 
bludgeon 



sulky 



food and clothes 
jackdaws 



POSTSCRIPT. 

Let half-starved slaves in warmer skies 
See future wines, rich clust'ring, rise ; 
Their lot auld Scotland ne'er envies, 

But blythe and frisky, 
She eyes her freeborn, martial boys 

Tak aff their whisky. 

What though their Phoebus kinder warms, 
While fragrance blooms and beauty charms ! 
When wretches range in famished swarms, 

The scented groves, 
Or hounded forth, dishonour arms 

In hungry droves. 

Their gun's a burden on their shouther ; shoulder 

They downa bide the stink o' powther ; cannot, powder 

Their bauldest thought's a hank'ring swither uncertainty 

To stan' or rin, 
Till skelp — a shot — they're aff, a' throwther, In confusion 

To save their skin. 

But bring a Scotchman frae his hill, 
Clap in his cheek a Highland gill, 



BURNS' POEMS. M 



Say such is royal George's will, 

And there's the foe, 
He has nae thought but how to kill 

Twa at a blow. 

Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him ; 
Death comes — wi' fearless eye he sees him; 
Wi' bluidy han' a welcome gies him ; 

And when he fa's, 
His latest draught o' breathin' lea'es him 

In faint huzzas! 

Sages their solemn een may steek, eyes, thut 

And raise a philosophic reek, 
And physically causes seek, 

In clime and season ; 
But tell me whisky's name in Greek, 

I'll tell the reason. 

Scotland, my auld, respected mither ! 

Though whiles ye moistify your leather, sometimes, moisten 

Till whare ye sit, on craps o' heather crops 

Ye tine your dam ; lose 

Freedom and whisky gang thegither ! — 

Tak aff your dram I 



THE AULD FARMER'S NEW-YEAR MORNING SALU- 
TATION TO HIS AULD MARE MAGGIE, 

ON GIVING HER THE ACCUSTOMED RIPP OF CORN TO HANSEL 
IN THE NEW YEAR. 

A QUID New-year I wish thee, Maggie ! 

Hae, there's a ripp to thy auld baggie : handful 

Though thou's howe-backit now, and kn aggie, hoVow, show- 

I've seen the day [ing the bones 

Thou eould hae gaen like ony staggie colt 

Out-owre the lay. over, field 

Though now thou's dowie, stiff, and crazy, melancholy 

And thy auld hide's as white's a daisy, 

I've seen thee dappl't, sleek, and glaizie, glossy 

A bonny gray : 
He should been tight that daur't to raize thee prepared, excite 

Ance in a day. once 

Thou ance was i' the foremost rank, 

A filly buirdly, steeve, and swank, stately, firm, agile 

And set weel down a shapely shank 

As e'er tread yird ; earth 

And could hae flown out-owre a stank stagnant ditcb 

Like ony bird. 

It's now some nine-and-twenty year, 

Sin' thou was my guid-father's meare ; mare 



68 burns' poems. 



He gied ine thee, o' tocher clear gave, dowry 

And fifty mark; 

Though it was sum', 'twas weel-won gear, goods 

And thou was stark. strong 

When first I gaed to woo my Jenny, went 

Ye then was trottin' wi' your minnie : mother 

Though ye was trickie, slee, and funnie, sly 

Ye ne'er was donsie ; restive 

But hamely, tawie, quiet, and cannie, quiet to handle, gentle 

And unco sonsie. very, engaging 

That day ye pranced wi' muckle pride, much 

When you bure hame my bonny bride : bore 

And sweet and gracefu' she did ride, 

Wi' maiden air I 
Kyle Stewart I could bragged wide, 

For sic a pair. 

Though now ye dow but hoyte and hobble, can, limp 

And wintle like a saumont-coble, stagger, salmon-boat 

That day ye was a j inker noble, runner 

For heels and win 5 ! 
And ran them till they a' did wauble reel 

Far, far behin' ! 

When thou and I were young and skeigh, high-mettled 

And stable-meals at fairs were dreigh, tedious 

How thou would prance, and snore, and skreigh, scream 

And tak' the road ! 
Town's bodies ran, and stood abeigh, aloof 

And ca't thee mad. 

When thou was corn't, and I was mellow, 

We took the road aye like a swallow : 

At brooses thou had ne'er a fellow race at a marriage 

For pith and speed ; 
But every tail thou pay't them hollow, 

Whare'er thou gaed. 

The sma' droop-rumpl't, hunter cattle, [short race 

Might aiblins waur't thee for a brattle ; perhaps, worst, 

But sax Scotch miles thou try't their mettle, six 

And gar't them whaizle : made, wheeze 

Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle wand 

0» saugh or hazle. willow 

Thou was a noble fit tie-Ian',* 

As e'er in tug or tow was drawn ! harness 

Aft thee and T, % in aught hours' gaun, eight, going 

In guid March weather, 
Hae turned sax rood beside our han' 

For days thegither. together 

Thou never braindg't, and fetch't, and fliskit/f 

But thy auld tail thou wad hae whisket, whisked 

* The right-hand horse in the plough. 

♦ Ran rashly, capered, pulled irregularly. 



burns' poems. 


69 


And spread abreed thy weel-filled brisket, 
Wi' pith and power, 

Till spritty knowes wad rair't and risket,* 
And slypet owre. 


abroad, breast 
turned over 


When frosts lay lang, and snaws were deep, 

And threatened labour back to keep, 

I gied thy cog a wee bit heap wooden dish 

Aboon the timmer ; above, edga 
I kenn'd my Maggie wadna sleep knew 

For that, or simmer. ere 


In cart or car thou never reestit ; stopt 
The steyest brae thou wad hae face'd it ; steepest 
Thou never lap, and sten't and breastit, leapt, strained, sprung 

Then stood to blaw ; breathe [forward 
But just thy step a wee thing hastit, hasted 

Thou snoov't awa. went smoothly on 


My pleugh is now thy bairn-time a 5 ; 
Four gallant brutes as e'er did draw ; 
Forbye sax mae I've sell't awa, 

That thou hast nurst : 
They drew me thretteen pund and twa, 

The very warst. 


besides, more 

fifteen 
worst 


Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought, 
And wi' the weary warl' fought ! 
And monie an anxious day I thought 

"We wad be beat ! 
Yet here to crazy age we're brought, 

Wi' something yet. 


sore day's work 
world 
many 
would 


And think na, my auld trusty servan', 
That now perhaps thou's less deservin', 
And thy auld days may end in starvin', 

For my last fow, 
A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane 

Laid by for you. 


heap of corn 
eighth of bushel 


We've worn to crazy years thegither ; 

We'll toyte about wi' ane anither; tottei 

Wi' tentie care I'll flit thy tether, observant, move, halter 

To some hain'd rig, spared ridge 
Where ye may nobly rax you leather, stretch 

Wi' sin a' fatigue. 


THE TWA DOGS. 




A TALE. 




'Twas in that place o' Scotland's isle 
That bears the name o' Auld King Coil, 
Upon a bonnie day in June, 
When wearing through the afternoon, 


(Kyle in Ayrsnir*) 


* Rushv hillocks, would, roared, rasped. 





TO BURNS' POEMS. 


Twa dogs that were na tbrang at hame, 


busy 


Forgathered ance upon a time. 


met 


The first I'll name, they ca'd him Caesar, 




"Was keepit for his honour's pleasure ; 




His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs, 


ears 


Showed he was nane o' Scotland's dogs, 




But whalpit some place far abroad, 


whelped 


Whare sailors gang to fish for cod. 


where, go 


His locked, lettered, braw brass collar, 


fine 


Showed him the gentleman and scholar ; 




But though he was o' high degree, 




Nae haet conceit — nae pride had he ; 


none 


But wad hae spent a hour caressin', 


would 


E'en wi' a tinkler-gipsy's messan. 


cur 


At kirk or market, mill or smiddie, 


smithy 


Nae tawted tyke, though e'er sae duddie, 


shaggy, ragged 


But he wad stan't, as glad to see him, 




And frisk owee stanes and hillocks wi' him 


. 


The titber was a ploughman's collie, 


other 


A rhyming, ranting, roving billie, 


blade 


Wha for hi- friend and comrade had him, 




And in his freaks had Luath ca'd him, 




After some dog in Highland sang, 


(Ossian) 


Was made langsyne — nane kens how lang. 




He was a gash and faithful tyke, 


sagacious 


As ever lap a sheugh or dyke. 


jumped, ditch 


His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face, 


plump, brindled 


Aye gat him friends in ilka place. 


always got, each 


His breast was white, his touzie back 


shaggy 


"YVeel clad wi' coat o' glossy black ; 




His gaucie tail, wi' upward curl, 


stately 


Hung o'er his hurdies wi' a swirl. hips 


, swirling motion 


Nae doubt but they were fain o' ither, 


fond 


And unco pack and thick thegither ; very 


intimate [ted 


Wi' social nose whyles snuff d and snowkit, 


sometimes scen- 


Whyles mice and moudieworts they howkit 


; moles, dug 


Whyles scoured awa in lang excursion, 


away 


And worried ither in diversion ; 


each other 


Until wi' daffin' weary grown, 


sporting 


Upon a knowe they sat them down, 


hillock 


And there began a lang digression 


long 


About the lords o' the creation. 




CAESAR. 




I've aften wondered, honest Luath, 




What sort o' life poor dogs like you have ; 




And when the gentry's life I saw, 




What way poor bodies lived ava. 


at all 


Our laird gets in his racked rents, 


[ment» 


His coals, his kain, and a' his stents ; rent in kind, assess- 



BURNS' POEMS. 


71 


He rises when he likes hiinsel ; 




His flunkies answer at the bell ; 




He ca's his coach, he ea\s his horse ; 




He draws a bonnie silken purse 




As lang's my tail, whare, through the steeks 


t stitches 


The yellow lettered Geordie keeks. 


peeps 


Frae morn to e'en it's nought but toiling, 




At baking, roasting, frying, boiling ; 




And though the gentry first are stechin, 


stuffing 


Yet e'en the ha' folk fill their pechan kitchen-people, stomach 


Wi' sauce, ragouts, and sic-like trashtrie, 




That's little short o' downright wastrie. 


waste 


Our whipper-in, wee stupid wonner,* 




Poor worthless elf, it eats a dinner 




Better than ony tenant man 




His honour has i' a' the Ian' ; 




And what poor cot-folk pit their painch in, 


put, stomach 


I own it's past my comprehension. 




LUATH. 




Trowth, Caesar, whyles they're fash't enough 


; troubled 


A cotter howkin' in a sheugh, 


digging, trench 


Wi' dirty stanes biggin' a dyke, 


building, wall 


Barring a quarry, and sic-like : 


fencing 


Himself, a wife, he thus sustains, 




A smytrie o' wee duddie weans, number, ragged children 


And nought but his han' darg, to keep 


day's work 


Them right and tight in thack and rape. 


daily wants 


And when they meet wi' sair disasters, 


sore 


Like loss o' health, or want o' masters, 




Ye maist wad think, a wee touch langor, 


almost, longer 


And they maun starve o' cauld and hunger; 


must 


But, how it comes, I never kenn'd yet, 


knew 


They're maistly wonderfu' contented : 




4nd buirdly chiels, and clever hizzies, stalwart fellows, girls 


Are bred in sic a way as this is. 




CJSSAIt. 




But then to see how ye're negleckit, 




How huffed, and cuffed, and disrespeckit ! 




Deed, man, our gentry care as little 




For delvers, ditchers, and sic cattle ; 


such 


They gang as saucy by poor folk, 


go 


As I wad by a stinkin' brock. 


badger 


I've noticed, on our Laird's court-day, 




And mony a time my heart's been wae, 


grieved 


Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash, 




How they maun thole a factor's snash : 


bear with, abuse 


He'll stamp and threaten, curse and swear, 




He'll apprehend them, poind their gear ; 


distrain, goods 


While they maun stan', wi aspect humble, 


must 


And hear it a', and fear and tremble ! 




* A person residing In the place. 





72 BURNS* POEMS. 



I see how folk live that hae riches ; 
But surely poor folk inaun be wretches ! 

LUATH. 

They're no sae wretched s ane wad think so, one 

Though constantly on poortith's brink : poverty 

They're sae accustomed wi' the sight, 
The view o't gies them little fright. 
Then chance and fortune are sae guided, 
They're aye in less or mair provided ; 
And though fatigued wi' close employment, 
A blink o' rest's a sweet enjoyment. 

The dearest comfort o' their lives, 

Their grushie weans and faithfu' wives; thriving children 

The prattling things are just their pride, 

That sweetens a' their fireside ; 

And whyles twalpenny worth* o' nappy ale 

Can mak' the bodies unco happy ; very 

They lay aside their private cares, 

To mind the Kirk and State affairs : 

They'll talk o' patronage and priests, 

Wi' kindling fury in their breasts, 

Or tell whf*t new taxation's comin', 

And ferlie at the folk in Lon'on. wonder 

As bleak-faced Hallowmas returns, All-Hallow 

They get the jovial, ran tin kirns, harvest-homes 

When rural life o' every station 

Unite in common recreation ; 

Love blinks, Wit slaps, and social Mirth 

Forgets there's Care upo' the earth. 

That merry day the year begins, 

They bar the door on frosty win's ; 

The nappy reeks wi* mantling ream, ale, froth 

And sheds a heart-inspiring steam ; 

The luntin pipe, and sneeshin-mill, smoking, snuff-hox 

Are handed round wi' right guidwill ; 

The can tie auld folks crackin' crouse, cheerful, talking briskly 

The young anes ran tin' through the house — ones 

My heart ha3 been sae fain to see them, 

That 1 for joy hae barkit wi' them. 

Still it's owre true that ye hae said, 

Sic game is now owre aften played. such, too 

There's monie a creditable stock 

O' decent, honest, fawsont fo'k seemly 

Are riven out baith root and branch, 

Some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench, 

Wha thinks to knit himsel the faster 

In favour wi' some gentle master, 

Wha aiblins thrang a pariiamentin', perhaps busy 

For Britain's guid his saul indentin' sou] 

* Twelve pence Scotch is equal to one penny sterling. 



BURNS POEMS 



?3 



Haith, lad, ye little ken about it; 

For Britain's guid ! guid faith, I doubt it. 

Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him, ' going 

And saying Ay or No's they bid him : 

At operas and plays parading, 

Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading ; 

Or maybe, in a frolic daft, merry 

To Hague or Calais takes a waft, 

To mak a tour and tak a whirl, 

To learn ton ton, and see the worl'. 

There, at Vienna or Versailles, 

He rives his father's auld entails ; tears 

Or by Madrid he takes the route, 

To thrum guitars, and fecht wi' nowte ; bullocks 

Then bouses drumly German water, drinks muddy 

To mak hirasel' look fair and fatter. 

For Britain's guid ! — for her destruction ! 
WY dissipation, feud, and faction. 

LUATII. 

Hech man ! clear sirs ! is that the gate way 

They waste sae mony a braw estate ! many, fine 

Are we sae foughten and harrassed exhausted 

For gear to gang that gate at last ! . money 

Oh would they stay aback frae courts, fiom 

And please themsels wi' country sports, 

It wad for every ane be better, would, one 

The Laird, the Tenant, and the Cotter ! 

For thae frank, rantin', rambling' billies, ' those, fellows 

Nae haet o* them's ill-hearted fellows ; none 

Except for shootin' hare or moor-cock, 

The ne'er a bit they're ill to poor folk. 

But will ye tell me, Master Caesar, 

Sure great folk's life's a life o' pleasure ? 

Nae cauld or hunger e'er can steer them, cold, stir 

The rery thought o't need na fear them. 

CJESAR. 
Man, were ye but whyles whare I am, sometimes 

The gentles ye wad ne'er envy 'em. 
It's true they needna starve or sweat, 
Through winter's cauld, or simmer's heat ; 
They've nae sair wark to craze their banes gore, bones 

And fill auld age wi' grips and granes ; gripes, groans 

But human bodies are sic fools, such 

For a' their colleges and schools, 
That when nae real ills perplex them, 
They make anow themsels to vex them ; 
And aye the less they hae to sturt them, molest 

In like proportion less will hurt them. 



F4 BURNS' POEMS, 


A country fellow at the pleugh 


plough 


His acres tilled, he's right eneugh ; 




A country girl at her wheel, 




Her dizzen's done, she's unco weel : 


dozen, very well 


But Gentlemen, and Ladies warst, 


worst 


Wi' even-down want o' wark are curst. 


work 


They loiter, lounging, lank, and lazy ; 




Though nae haet ails them, yet uneasy ; 


nothing 


Their days insipid, dull, and tasteless ; 




Their nights unquiet, lang, and restless. 




And e'en their sports, their balls and races, 




Their galloping through public places, 




There's si? parade, sic pomp, and art, 




The joy can scarcely reach the heart. 




The men cast out in party matches 


quarrel 


Then sowther a' in deep debauches ; 


solder 


Ae night they're mad wi' drink procuring, 




Niest day their life is past enduring. 


next 


The Ladies arm-in-arm in clusters, 




As great and gracious a' as sisters ; 




But hear their absent thoughts o' ither, 


each other 


They're a' run wild and jads thegither, 




"Whyles o'er the wee bit cup and platie, 




They sip the scandal potion pretty ; 




Orlee-lang nights, wi' crabbit leuks, 


livelong, looks 


Pore ower the devil's pictured beuks ; 


cards 


Stake on a chance a farmer's stackyard, 




And cheat like ony unhanged- blackguard. 


any 


There's some exception, man and woman; 




But this is Gentry's life jn common. 




By this, the sun was out o' sight, 




And darker gloaming brought the night: 


twilight 


The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone; 


beetle 


The kye stood rowtin* i' the loan; 


cows, bellowing 


"When up they gat, and shook their lugs, 


ears 


Rejoiced they were na men, but dogs ; 




And each took affhis several way, 


off 


Resolved to meet some ither day. 


other 


TO A LOUSE, 




ON SEEING ONE ON A LADY'S BONNET AT CHURCH, 


Ha ! where ye gaun, ye crawlin' ferlie ? 


going, wonder 


Your impudence protects you sairly: 


very much 


1 canna say but ye strunt rarely 


rtrut 


Owre gauze and lace ; 




Though faith 1 fear ye dine but sparely 




On sic a place. 


such 

J 



BURNS' POEMS. 


7t 


Ye ugly, creepin', nasty wonner, 


. 


Detested, shunn'd, by saunt and sinner, 




How dare you set your fit upon her, 


foot 


Sae fine a lady ? 




Gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner 


go 


On some poor body. 






[sprawl 


Swith, in some beggar's haffet squattle ; 


quick, cheek, 


There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle 


scramble 


Wi* ithcr kindred, jumping cattle, 




In shoals and nations; 




Whare horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle 


dare 


Your thick plantations. 




Now haud you there, ye're out o' sight, 


remain 


Below the fatt'rel's, snug and tight; 


ribbon-ends 


Na, faith ye yet ! ye'll no be right 




Till ye've got on it, 




The very tapmost, towering height 




0' Miss's bonnet. 




My sooth 1 right bauld ye set your nose out, 


bold 


As plump and gray as ony grozet ; 


gooseberry 


Oh for some rank, mercurial rozet, 


rosin 


Or fell, red smeddum, 


powder 


I'd gie you sic a hearty doze o't 




Wad dress your droddum ! 


breech j 


I wad na been surprised to spy 


would not 


You on an auld wife's flannen toy ; 


flannel cap 


Or aiblins some bit duddie boy, perhaps, ragged 


On's wyliecoat ; 


under vest 


But Miss's fine Lunardi ! fie ! 




How daur ye do't ? 




Oh, Jenny, dinna toss your head, 


do not 


And set your beauties a' abread ! 


abroad 


Ye little ken what feaefu' speed 


know 


The beastie's makin' ? 




Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread, 


those 


Are notice takin' ! 




Oh wad some power the giftie gie us 


would, gift 


To see oursels as others see us 1 




It wad frae mony a blunder free us, 


from many 


And foolish notion : 




What airs in dress and gait wad lea'e us, 




And even devotion 1 

! 
| 





76 



burns' poems. 



AN ADDRESS TO THE UVCO MJID, OR THE 
RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS. 

My eon, these maxims make a rule, 

And lump them aye thcsrither: 
The Rijrid Rigrhteou3 is a fool, 

The Rigid Wise anither : 
The cleanest corn that e'er was (light 

May hae some pyles o' caff in; 
So ne v er a fellow-creature slight 

For random fits o' damn. 

Oh ye wha are sae guid yoursel', good 

Sae pious and sae holy, so 

Ye've nought to do but mark and tell 

Your neebour's fauts and folly! neighbour's faults 

Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, whose, well-going 

Supplied wi' store o' water, 
The heaped happer's ebbing still, hopper 

And still the clap plays clatter. 



Hear me, ye venerable core, 

As counsel for poor mortals, 
That frequent pass douce "Wisdom's door 

For glaiket Folly's portals ; 
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes, 

"Would here propone defences, 
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes, 

Their failings and mischances. 

Ye see your state wi' theirs compared, 

And shudder at the niffer, 
But cast a moment's fair regard, 

What maks the mighty differ ? 
Discount what scant occasion gave 

That purity ye pride in, 
And (what's aft mair than a' the lave) 

Your better art o' hiding. 

Think, when your castigated pulse 

Gies now and then a wallop, 
"What ragings must his veins convulse, 

That still eternal gallop ; 

Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail, 

Right on ye scud your sea-way ; 

But in the teeth o' baith to sail, 

It makes an unco lee-way. 

* « * * 

Then gently scan your brother man, 

Still gentler sister woman ; 
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang. 

To step aside is human : 
One point must still be greatly dark, 

The moving why they do it : 
And just as lamely can ye mark 

How far perhaps they rue it. 



company 



grave 
idle 



unlucky 



exchange 



oft, more, rest 



quick motion 



great 



go, trifle 



burns' poems. 


11 


Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 




Decidedly can try us, 




He knows each chord — its various tone, 




Each spring — its various bias : 




Then at the balance let's be mute, 




We never can adjust it ; 




What's done we partly may compute, 




But know not what's resisted. 




THE INVENTORY. 


IN ANSWER TO A MANDATE BY THE SURVEYOR OF THE TAXES. 


Sir, as your mandate did request, 




I send you here afaithfu' list 




0' gudes and gear, and a' my graith, 


riches, harness 


To which I'm clear to gie my .aith. 


oath 


Imprimis, then, for carriage cattle, 




I have four brutes o' gallant mettle, 




As ever drew afore a pettle. 


plough-stick 


My han' afore's* a gude auld has-been, 




And wight and wilfu' a' his days been. 


stout 


My nan' ahin'sf a weel-gaun filly, 




That aft has borne me hame frae Killie, 


Kilmarnock 


And your auld burro' mony a time, 




In days when riding was nae crime- 




But ance, whan in my wooing pride, 


once 


I like a blockhead boost to ride, 


behoved 


I played my filly sic a shavie, 


trick 


She's a made useless wi' the spavie. 




My fur ahin's a wordy beast, right horse "behind, worthy 


As e'er in tug or tow was traced. 


plough, harnessed 


The fourth's a Highland Donald hastie, 




A daft red wud Kilburnie beastie ! 


wild 


Forbye a cowte o' cowtes the wale, besides, colt, choice 


As ever ran afore a tail, 




If lie be spared to be a beast, 




He'll draw me fifteen pun' at least — 


pounds 


W T heel carriages I hae but few, 




Three carts, and twa are feckly new ; 


nearly 


Ae auld wheelbarrow, mair for token 


one 


Ae leg and ba^b the trams are broken ; 


both, shafts 


I made a poker o che spin'le, 




And my auld mither brunt the trinle. 


burnt, wheel 


For men I've three mischievous boys, 




Run wild for rantin' and for noise ; 




A gaud<man ane, a thrasher t'other, 


ploughman one 


Wee Davock hauds the nowt in f other, keeps, cattle, fodder 


I rule them, as I ought, discreetly, 




And aften labour them completely ; 


belabour 


And aye on Sundays duly, nightly, 


alway 


I on the Questions targe them tightly ; 


examine 


* Left horse in front of plough. f Left horse behind. 



78 BURNS' POEMS. 



TH1, faith, wee Davock's turned sae gleg, quick 

Though scarcely Langer than your leg, taller 

He'll screed you aff Effectual Calling, repeat, off 

As fast as ony in the d walling. 

Wi' weans I'm mair than weel contented, children 

Heaven sent me ane mae than I wanted. one more 

My sonsie, smirking, dear-bought Bess, stout, good-natured 

She stares the daddy in her face, 

Enough of ought ye like but grace ; 

But her, my bonny sweet wee lady, 

I've paid enough for her already. 

And now, remember, Mr Aiken, 
Nae kind of licence out I'm takin' ; 
My travel, a' on foot I'll shank it, walk 

I've sturdy bearers, praise be thankit. 
Sae dinna put me in your buke, book 

Nor for my ten white shillings luke. look 

This list wi' my ain hand I've wrote it, 
The day and date as under noted ; 
Then know all yo whom it concerns, 
Subscript hide, ROBERT BURNS. 

MOSSGIEL, February 22, 1786. 



Thou flattering mark of friendship kind, 
Still may thy pages call to mind 

The dear, the beauteous Donor : 
Though sweetly female every part, 
Yet such a head, and more the heart, 

Does both the sexes honour. 
She showed her taste refined and just 

When she selected thee, 
Yet deviating own I must, 
In sae approving me ; 

But kind still, I'll mind still 

The Giver in the gift — 
111 bless her, and wiss her wish 

A friend aboon the lift. above, sky 



TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, 

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH IN APRIL 1786. 

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, 

Thou's met me in an evil hour ; 

For I maun crush amang the stoure must,diurt 

Thy slender stem : 
To spare thee now is past my power, 

Thou bonnie gem. 

Alas ! it's no thy neibor sweet, 
The bonnie lark, companion meet, 



BURNS' POEMS. 



T» 



Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet ! wet 

TVY speckled breast, 
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet 

The purpling east. 

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north cold 

Upon thy early, humble birth ; 

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth glanced 

Amid the storm, 
Scarce reared above the parent earth 

Thy tender form. 

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, 

High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield : walls must 

But thou, beneath the random bield shelter 

0' clod or stane, stone 

Adorns the histie stibble-field, dry stubble 

Unseen, alane. alone 



There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread, 
Thou lifts thy unassuming head 

In humble guise ; 
But now the share uptears thy bed, 

And low thou lies ! 

Such is the fate of artless maid, 
Sweet floweret of the rural shade ! 
By love's simplicity betrayed, 

And guileless trust, 
Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid 

Low i' the dust. 

Such is the fate of simple bard, 

On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd ! 

Unskilful he to note the card 

Of prudent lore, 
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 

And whelm him o'er I 

Such fate to suffering worth is given, 
Who long with wants and woes has striven, 
By human pride or cunning driven 

To misery's brink, 
Till wrenched of every stay but Heaven, 

He, ruined, sink 1 

Even thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, 
That fate is thine — no distant date ; 
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, 

Full on thy bloom, 
Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight. 

Shall be thy doom. 



snow7 



w BURNS' poems. 



LAMENT. 

"Alas! how oft doe? goodness wound itself, 
And sweet affection prove the spring of woe !" — ] 

Oh thou pale orb, that silent shines, 

While care-untroubled mortals sleep ! 
Thou seest a wretch who inly pines, 

And wanders here to wail and weep ! 
With woe I nightly vigils keep 

Beneath thy wan, unwarminff beam : 
And mourn, in lamentation deep, 

How life and love are all a dream. 

I joyless view thy rays adorn 

The faintly-marked distant hill : 
I joyless view thy trembling horn 

Reflected in the gurgling rill : 
My fondly-fluttering heart be still 1 

Thou busy power, remembrance, cease 
Ah ! must the agonizing thrill 

For ever bar returning peace ! 

No idly-feigned poetic pains 

My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim; 
No shepherd's pipe — Arcadian strains ; 

No fabled tortures, quaint and tame : 
The plighted faith ; the mutual flame ; 

The oft-attested Powers above ; 
The promised father's tender name ; 

These were the pledges of my love ! 

Encircled in her clasping arms, 

How have the raptured moments flown ! 
How have I wished for fortune's charms, 

For her dear sake, and her's alone 1 
And must I think it ! — is she gone, 

My secret heart's exulting boast ? 
And does she heedless hear my groan ? 

And is she ever, ever lost ? 

Oh can she bear so base a heart, 

So lost to honour, lost to truth, 
As from the fondest lover part, 

The plighted husband of her youth ! 
Alas ! life's path may be unsmooth ! 

Her way may lie through rough distress * 
Then who her pangs and pains will soothe, 

Her sorrows share, and make them less ? 

Ye winged hours that o'er us passed, 
Enraptured more, the more enjoj'ed, 

Your dear remembrance in my breast, 
My fondly-treasured thoughts employed. 

That breast, how dreary now, and void, 
For her too scanty once of room ! 



BURNS' POEMS. 



§1 



Even every ray of hope destroyed, 
And not a wish to gild the gloom ! 

The morn that warms th' approaching day, 

Awakes me up to toil and woe : 
I see the hours in long array, 

That I must suffer, lingering, slow. 
Full many a pang, and many a throe, 

Keen recollection's direful train, 
Must wring my soul ere Phcebus, low, 

Shall kiss the distant, western main. 

And when my nightly couch I try, 

Sore harassed out with care and grief, 
My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye 

Keep watchings with the nightly thief : 
Or if I slumber, fancy, chief. 

Reigns haggard-wild in sore affright.: 
Even day, all bitter, brings relief 

From such a horror-breathing night. 

Oh thou bright queen, who o'er the expanse^ 

Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway ! 
Oft has thy silent-marking glance 

Observed us, fondly-wandering, stray ! 
The time, unheeded, sped away, 

"While love's luxurious pulse beat high, 
Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray, 

To mark the mutual kindling eye. 

Oh scenes in strong remembrance set ! 

Scenes never, never to return 1 
Scenes, if in stupor I forget, 

Again I feel, again I burn ! 
From every joy and pleasure torn, 

Life's weary vale I'll wander through ; 
And hopeless, comfortless, 111 mourn 

A faithless woman's broken vow. 



DESPONDENCY. 



AN ODE. 

Oppressed with grief, oppressed with care, 
A burden more than I can bear, 

I set me down and sigh : 
Oh life ! thou art a galling load, 
Along a rough, a weary road, 

To wretches such as I ! 
Dim-backward as I cast my view, 

What sickening scenes appear ! 
What sorrows yet may pierce me through. 

Too justly I may fear I 



M BURNS' POEMS. 



Still caring, despairing, 
Must be iny bitter doom ; 

My woes here shall close ne'er 
But with the closing tomb ! 

Happy, ye sons of busy life, 
9 "Who, equal to the bustling strife, 
No other view regard ! 
Even when the wished end's denied, 
Yet while the busy means are plied, 

They bring their own reward : 
Whilst I, a hope-abandoned wight, 

Unfitted with an aim, 
Meet every sad returning night 
And joyless morn the same; 
You, bustling, and justling, 

Forget each grief and pain ; 
I, listless, yet restless, 
Find every prospect vain. 

How blest the solitary's lot, 
Who. all-forgetting, all-forgot, 

Within his humble cell, 
The cavern wild with tangling-roots, 
Sits o'er his newly-gathered fruits, 

Beside his crystal well ! 
Or haply to his evening thought, 

By unfrequented stream, 
The ways of men are distant brought, 
A faint collected dream ; 
W T hile praising, and raising 

His thoughts to heaven on high, 
As wand'ring, meand'ring, 
He views the solemn sky. 

Than T, no lonely hermit placed, 
Where never human footstep traced, 

Less fit to play the part ; 
The lucky moment to improve, 
And just to stop, and just to move, 

With self-respecting art : 
But ah ! those pleasures, loves, and joyt, 

Which I too keenly taste, 
The solitary can despise, 
Can want, and yet be blest ! 
He needs not, he heeds not, 

Or human love or hate, 
Whilst I here, must cry here 
At perfidy ingrate ! 

Oh enviable, early days, 

When dancing thoughtless pleasure's nj2Use, 

To care, to guilt unknown ! 
How ill exchanged for riper times, 
To feel the follies, or the crimes, 

Of others, or my own 1 



BURNS' POEMS. £3 



Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport, 

Like linnets in the bush, 
Ye little know the ills ye court, 
When manhood is your wish ! 
The losses, the crosses, 

That active man engage ! 
The fears all, the tears all, 
Of dim declining age. 



TO RUIN. 

All hail! inexorable lord ! 

At whose destruction-breathing word 

The mightiest empires fall ! 
Thy cruel, wo-delighted train, 
The ministers of grief and pain, 

A sullen welcome, all ! 
With stern-resolved, despairing eye; 

I see each aimed dart; 
For one has cut my dearest tie, 
And quivers in my heart. 
Then lowering and pouring, 

The siorin no more I dread ; 
Though thick'ning and black'ning 
Round my devoted head. 

And thou grim power, by life abhorred, 
While life a pleasure can afford, 

Oh hear a wretch's prayer ! 
No more I shrink appalled, afraid ; 
I court, I beg thy friendly aid, 

To close this scene of care ! 
When shall my soul in silent peace, 

Resign life's joyless day ; 
My weary heart its throbbings cease. 
Cold mouldering in the clay? 
No fear more, no tear more, 
To stain my lifeless face ; 
Enclasped and grasped 
Within thy cold embrace ! 



TO GAVIN HAMILTON. 

MosSGlEL, May 8, 1783, 
lH0LDit,sir, my bounden duty, 
To warn you how that Master Tootie, 

Alias, Laird M'Gaun, 
Was here to hire yon lad away 
'Bout whom ye spak the tither day, spoke, other 

And wad hae done't aff nan 5 : would, instantly 



84 



BURNS' poems. 



But lest he learn the callan tricks, 

As, faith, I muckle doubt him, 
Like Rcrapin' out auld Cruintnie's nicks, 
And tellin' lies about them ; 
As lieve then, I'd have then, 

Your clerkship he should sair, 
If sae be ye may be 
Nor fitted other where. 

Although I say't, he's gleg enough, 
And "bout a house that's rude and rough, 

The boy might learn to swear ; 
But then wi' you he'll be sae taught, 
And get sic fair example straught, 

I haven a ony fear 
Yell catechise him every quirk, 

And when ye hear the bell, 
Ye'll gar him follow to the kirk — 
— Aye when ye gang yoursel. 
If ye, then, maun be, then, 

Frae hame this comin' Friday ; 
Then please sir, to lea'e, sir^ 
The orders wi' your leddy. 

My word of honour 1 hae gi'en, 

In Paisley John's, that night at e'en, 

To meet the warld's worm ;* 
To try to get the twa to gree, 
And name the airles and the fee, 

In legal mode and form : 
I ken he weel a sneck can draw, 
V/hen simple bodies let him. 

****** 
To phrase you, and praise you, 
Ye ken your Laureat scorns : 
The prayer still, you share still, 
Of grateful Minstrel Burns. 



r.zy 

(on cow's horn) 

content 

serve 

so 

elsewhere 

sharp 



straight 
have not any 



from home 



lady 
given 



agree 
earnest money 

know, is crafty 



EPISTLE TO A YOUNG FRIEND. 

(ANDREW AIKEN.) 

I LANG hae thought, my youthfu' friend, 

A something to have sent you, 
Though it should serve nae other end 

Than just a kind memento ; 
But how the subject-theme may gang, 

Let time and chance determine ; 
Perhaps it may turn out a sang, 

Perhaps turn out a sermon. 

Ye'll try the world fu' soon, my lad, 
And, Andrew dear, believe me, 



May 1786. 
long have 



go 



song 



fan 



* A mean avaricious character. 



BURNS' POEMS. 


M 


Ye'll find mankind an unco squad, 


strange 


And muckle they may grieve ye : 




For care and trouble set your thought, 




Even when your end's attained ; 




And a' your views may come to nought, 




Where every nerve is strained. 




I'll no say men are villains a' ; 




The real, hardened wicked, 




Wha hae nae check but human law, 


who 


Are to a few restricked ; 




But, och ! mankind are unco weak, 


very 


And little to be trusted ; 




If self the wavering balance shake, 




It's rarely right adjusted 1 




Yet they wha fa' in fortune's strife, 


fall 


Their fate we should na censure, 


not 


For still th' important end of life 




They equally may answer ; 




A man may hae an honest heart, 


have 


Though poortith hourly stare him ; 


poverty 


A man may tak a neibor's part, 


neighbours 


Yet hae nae cash to spare him. 




Aye free, aff ban* your story tell, 


alivaj'8. offhand 


When wi' a bosom crony ; 


companion 


But still keep something to yoursel 




Ye scarcely tell to ony. 


any 


Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can 




Frae critical dissection, 




But keek through every other man, 


look 


Wi sharpened, sly inspection. 




The secret lowe o' weel-placed love, 


flame 


Luxuriantly indulge it ; 




But never tempt th' illicit rove, 




Though nae thing should divulge it : 


nothing 


I waive the quantum o' the sin, 




The hazard of concealing; 




But, och ! it hardens a' within, 




And petrifies the feeling ! 




To catch dame Fortune's golden smile, 




Assiduous wait upon her ; 




And gather gear by every wile 


we^ltSi 


That's justified by honour ; 




Not for to hide it in a hedge, 




Nor for a train-attendant, 




But for the glorious privilege 




Of being independent. 




The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip, 




To haud the wretch in order ; 


keep 


But where you feel your honour grip, 




Let that aye be your border 





86 BURNS POEMS. 



Its slightest touches, instant pause — 

Debar a' side pretences ; 
And resolutely keep its laws, 

Uncaring consequences. 

The great Creator to revere 

Must sure become the creature ; 
But still the preaching cant forbear, 

And even the rigid feature : 
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range, 

Be complaisance extended 
An Athiest laugh's a poor exchange 

For Deity offended 1 

When ranting round in pleasure's ring, 

Religion may be blinded ; 
Or if she gi'e a random sting, giro 

It may be little minded ; 
But when on life we're tempest driven, 

A conscience but a canker, 
A correspondence fixed wi' Heaven, 

Is sure a noble anchor 1 

Adieu, dear, amiable youth 1 

Your heart can ne'er be wanting ! 
May prudence, fortitude, and truth, 

Erect your brow undaunting ! 
In ploughman phrase, " God send you speed," 

Still daily to grow wiser: 
And may you better reck the rede heed, counsel 

Than ever did th' adviser ! 



A DREAM. 

** Thoughts,- words, and deeds, the statute blames with reason i 
But surely dreams were ne'er indicted treason." 
On reading 1 , in the public papers, the " Laureate's Ode," with the other parade of 
June 4. 17K6, the author was no sooner dropt asleep, than he imagined himself tran- 
sported to the birthday levee ; and in his dreaming fancy made the following 
11 Address: "— 

Guid-mornin* to your Majesty ! 

May Heaven augment your blesses, 
On every new birthday, ye see, 

A humble poet wishes ! 
My hardship here, at your levee, 

On sic a day as this is, such 

Is sure an uncouth sight to see, 

Amang thae birthday dresses these 

Sae line this day. so 

I see ye're complimented thrang, busily 

By many a lord and lady ; 
" God save the king !" 's a cuckoo sang 

That's unco easy said aye ; very 



BURNS POEMS. 



87 



The poets, too, a venal gang, 

Wi J rhymes weel-turned and ready, 
Wad gar ye trow ye ne'er do wrang, 

But aye unerring steady, 
On sic a day. 

For me I before a monarch's face 

Even there I winna natter ; 
For neither pension, post, nor place, 

Am I your humble debtor : 
So, nae reflection on your grace, 

Your kingship to bespatter ; 
There's mony waur been o' the race, 

And aiblins ane been better 

Than you this day. 

'Tis very true, my sovereign king, 

My skill may weel be doubted : 
But facts are chiels that winna ding. 

And downa be disputed: 
Your royal nest, beneath your wing, 

Is e'en right reft and clouted, 
And now the third part of the string, (American colonies) 

And less, will gang about it go 

Than did ae day. one 

Far be't frae me that I aspire from 

To blame your legislation, 
Or say ye wisdom want, or fire, 

To rule this mighty nation ! 
But faith ! I muckle doubt, my sire, 

Ye've trusted ministration 
To chaps, wha, in a barn or byre, 

Wad better filled their station 

Than courts yon day. 



would make 



will not 



worse 
perhaps one 



well 

fellows, he beaten 

cannot 

broken, patched 



much 



* who 
would have 



And now ye've gien auld Britain peace ; 

Her broken shins to plaister ; 
Your sair taxation does her fleece, 

Till she has scarce a tester ; 
For me, thank Heaven*, my life's a lease, 

Nae bargain wearing faster, 
Or, faith ! I fear, that, wi' the geese, 

I shortly boost to pasture 

F the craft some day. 



I'm no mistrusting "Willie Pitt, 

When taxes he enlarges, 
(And Will's a true guid fallow's get, 

A name not envy spairges), 
That he intends to pay your debt, 

And lessen a' your charges ; 
But, dear sake! let nae saving fit 

Abridge your bonny barges 

And boats this day. 



given old 
sore 



behov ed 
field 



good fellow's child 
asperses 



navy 



88 


BURNS* POEMS. 






Adieu, my liege ! may Freedom geek 


sport 




Beneath your high protection ; 






And may you rax Corruption's neck, 


stretch 




And gie her for dissection. 


giva 




But since I'm here, I'll no neglect, 






In loyal, true affection, 






To pay your Queen, with due respect, 






My fealty and subjection 






This great birthday. 






Hail Majesty Most Excellent ! 






While nobles strive to please ye, 






"Will ye accept a compliment 






A simple poet gies ye ? 






Thae bonnie bairn-time, Heaven has lent 


those children 




Still higher may they heeze ye 


raise 




In bliss, till fate some day is sent, 






For ever to release ye 






Frae care that day ! 


from 




For you, young potentate o' Wales, 






I tell your Highness fairly, 






Down pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sail3, 




I'm tauld ye're driving rarely; 


told 




But some day ye may gnaw your nails, 






And curse your folly sairly, 


sorely 




That e'er ye brak Diana's pales, 






Or rattled dice wi' Charlie, 






By night or day. 






Yet aft a ragged cowte's been known, 


oft, colt 




To inak a noble aiver; 


cart-horse 




So, ye may doucely fill a throne, 


soberly 




* For a' their clish-ma-claver : 


tall 




There, him at Agincourt wha shone, 






Few better were or braver ; 






And yet, wi' funny queer Sir- John, 






He was an unco shaver, 


wag 




For monie a day. 


many 




For you, right reverend Osnaburg, 


(Duke of York) 




Nane sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter, 


none 




Although a ribbon at your lug 


ear 




Wad been a dress completer : 


would 




As ye disown yon paughty dog 


proud 




That bears the keys of Peter, 






Then, swith ! and get a wife at anck, 


quicfc 




Or, trouth ! ye'll stain the mitre 






Some luckless day. 






Ye, lastly, bonnie blossoms a' ; 






Ye royal lasses dainty, 




i 


Heaven mak ye guid as weel as braw, 


good 




And gie you lads a-plenty : 






But sneer na British boys awa', 


not 




For kings are unco scant aye ; 


very 



burns' poems. 



8fl 



And German gentles are but sma', 
They're better just than want aye 
On ony day. 

Now bless you a* ! consider now, 

Ye're unco muckle dautet ; much caressed 
But ere the course o' life be through, 

It may be bitter sautet : salted 

And I hae seen their coggie fou, bowl full 

That yet hae tarrow't at it ; lingered 

But or the day was done, I trow, ere 

The laggen they hae clautet coiners, scraped 
Fu' clean that day. 



ON A SCOTCH BARD, 



GONE TO THE WEST INDIES. 



A* YE wha live by sowps o' drink, quantities 

A' ye wha live by crambo-clink, versifying 
A* ye wha live and never think, 

Come, mourn wi' me ! 

Our billie's gien us a' a jink, brother, the slip 

And owre the sea. over 

Lament him a' ye rantin' core, noisy folks 

AVha dearly like a random-splore, who, frolic 

Nae mair he'll join the merry roar no more 

In social key ; 
For now he's ta'en anither shore, 

And owre the sea ! 

Auld can tie Kyle may weepers wear, cheerful 

And stain them wi' the saut, saut tear ; salt 

'Twill mak her poor auld heart, I fear, 

In flinders flee ; splinters 

He was her laureat mony a year, 

That's owre the sea. 

He saw misfortune's cauld nor-west 

Lang mustering up a bitter blast ; 

A jillet brak his heart at last, jilt 

111 may she be 1 
So, took a berth afore the mast, 

And owre the sea. 

To tremble under fortune's cummock, rod 

On scarce a bellyfu' o' drummock, meal and water 

Wi' his proud, independent stomach, 

Could ill agree ; 
So row't his hurdies in a hammock, wrapped himself 

And owre the sea. 

He ne'er was gien to great misguiding, given 

Yet coin his pouches wad na bide in ; would not 



90 BURNS' POEMS. 





Wi' him it ne'er was under hiding — 


He dealt it free : 




The Muse was a' that he took pride in, 




That's owre the sea. 




Jamaica bodies, use him weel, 




And hap him in a cozie biel: wrap 


snug shelter 


Ye "11 find him aye a dainty chiel, 


fellow 


And fou o' glee ; 


full 


He wad na wranged the very deil, 




That's owre the sea. 




Fareweel, my rhyme*composing billie! 


brother 


Your native soil was right ill-willie ; 


Ill-natured 


But may ye flourish like a lily, 




Now bonnilie 1 




I'll toast ye in my hindmost gillie, 


gill 


Though owre the sea ! 


over 


A BARD'S EPITAPH. 




T? there a whim-inspired fool, 




Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, 


too 


Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool, bashful. succumb 


Let him draw near; 




And owre this grassy heap sing dool, 


o'er, sorrow 


And drap a tear. 


drop 


Is there a bard of rustic song, 




"Who, noteless, steals the crowds among, 




That weekly this area throng, 




Oh, pass not by 1 




But, with a frater-feeling strong, 




Here, heave a sigh. 




Is there a man, whose judgment clear, 




Can others teach the course to steer, 




Yet runs himself life's mad career, 




"Wild as the wave ; 




Here pause— and, through the starting tear, 




Survey this grave. 




The poor inhabitant below, 




Was quick to learn, and wise to know, 




And keenly felt the friendly glow, 




And softer flame ; 




But thoughtless follies laid him lew, 




And stained his name J 




Reader, attend — whether thy soul 




Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, 




Or darkling grub3 this earthly hole, 




In low pursuit ; 




Know, prudent, cautious self-control 




Is wisdom's root. 







JJURNS POEMS. 



31 



A DEDICATION TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ. 



Expect na. sir, in this narration, 
A fleechin, flethr'in dedication, 
To roose you up, and ca' you guid, 
And sprung o' great and noble bluid, 
Because ye're surnamed like his Grace ; 
Perhaps related to the race ; 
Then when I'm tired, and sae are ye, 
Wi' mony a fulsome, sinfu' lie, 
Set up a face, how I stop short, 
For fear your modesty be hurt. 

This may do— maun do, sir, wi' them who 

Maun please the great folk for a wamefou ; 

For me ! sae laigh I needna bow, 

For, I am thankfu' I can plough ; 

And when I downa yoke a naig, 

Then, I'll be thankfu' I can beg ; 

Sae I shall sae, and that's nac flatterin', 

It's just sic poet, and sic patron. 

The Poet, some guid angel help him, 
Or else, I fear some ill ane skelp him, 
He may do weel for a' he's done yet, 
But only he's no just begun yet. 

The Patron (sir, ye maun forgie me, 
I winna lie, come what will o' me), 
On every hand it will allowed be, 
He's just — nae better than he should be. 

I readily and freely grant, 
He downa see a poor man want ; 
What's no his ain he winna tak it, 
What ance he says he winna break it ; 
Ought he can lend he'll no refus't 
Till aft his gudeness is abused ; 
And rascals whiles that do him wrang, 
Even that, he does na mind it lang : 
As master, landlord, husband, father, 
He does na fail his part in either. 

But then nae thanks to him for a that, 
Nae godly symptom ye can ca' that ; 
It's naething but a milder feature 
Of our poor sinfu', corrupt nature : 
Yell get the best o' moral works, 
•Mang black Gentoos and pagan Turks, 
Or hunters wild on Ponotaxi, 
W r ha never heard of orthodoxy. 
That he's the poor man's friend in need, 
The gentleman in word and deed. 

Morality, thou deadly bane, 

Thy tens o* thousands thou hast slain ! 



not 

wheedling, flattering 

praise, call, good 

blood 

(Duke of Hamilton) 



must 

bellyful! 

low 

cannot, nag 
such 



strike 
well 



will not 

not, own, will not 

once 

often 

lometimea 

long 



wfco 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Vain is his hope whose stay and trust Is 
In moral mercy, truth, and justice ! 

No — stretch a point to catch a plack ; coin 

Abuse a brother to his back ; 

Be to the poor like ony whunstane, any whinstone 

And haud their noses to the grunstane, hold, grindstone 

Ply every art o' legal thieving ; 

No matter — stick to sound belioving ! 

Learn three-mile prayers, and half-mile graces, 

Wi' weel-spread lcoves, and lang wry faces ; palms, long 

Grunt up a solemn, lengthened groan, 

Condemn a' parties but your own ; 

I'll warrant, then, ye're nae deceiver — 

A steady, sturdy, stanch believer. 

Oh ye wha leave the springs o' Calvin, 

For gumlie dubs of your ain delvin' ! muddy . 

Ye sons of heresy and error, 

Ye'll some day squeel in quaking terror ! 

"When Vengeance draws the sword in wrath, 

And in the fire throws the sheath ; 

When Ruin, with his sweeping besom, 

Just frets, till Heaven commission gies him : 

While o'er the harp pale Misery moans, 

And strikes the ever-deepening tones, 

Still louder shrieks, and heavier groans ! 

Your pardon, Sir, for this digression, 

I maist forgot my dedication ; almost 

But when divinity comes cross me, 

My readers still are sure to lose me. 

So, sir, ye see 'twas nae daft vapour, foolish 

But 1 maturely thought it proper, 

When a' my works I did review, 

To dedicate them, sir, to you : 

Because (ye need na tak it ill) 

I thought them something like yoursel. 

Then patronise them wi' your favour, 

And your petitioner shall ever 

I had amaist said, ever pray, almost 

But that's a word I need na say : 

For prayin' I hae little skill o't ; 

I'm baith dead sweer, and wretched ill o't ; both, unwilling 

But I'se repeat each poor man's prayer 

That kens or hears about you, sir — knows 

" May ne'er misfortune's gowling bark galling 

Howl through the dwelling o' the Clerk ! (Mr Hamilton) 

May ne'er his generous, honest heart, 

For that same generous spirit smart ! 

May Kennedy's far-honoured name 

Lang beet his hymeneal flame, 

Till Hamiltons, at least a dizen, dozen 

Are by their canty fireside risen : comfortable 



BURNS* POEMS. 8» 



Five boimie lassies round their table, 

And seven braw fellows, stout and able, 

To serve their king and country weel, well 

By word, or pen, or pointed steel ! 

May health and peace, with mutual rays, 

Shine on the evening o' his days, 

Till his wee curlie John's ier-oe, great-gvandchild 

When ebbing life nae in air shall flow. no mors 

The last, sad, mournful rites bestow. " 

I will not wind a lang conclusion 

With complimentary effusion : 

But whilst your wishes and endeavours 

Are blest with fortune's smiles and favours, 

I am, dear sir, with zeal most fervent, 

Your much indebted, humble servant. 

But if (which powers above prevent !) 

That iron-hearted carl. Want, 

Attended in his grim advances 

By sad mistakes and black mischances, 

While hopes, and joys, and pleasures fly him, 

Make you as poor a dog as i am, 

Your humble servant then no more ; 

For who would humbly serve the poor ? 

But by a poor man's hopes in Heaven ! 

While recollection's power is given, 

If, in the vale of humble life, 

The victim sad of fortune's strife, 

I, through the tender-gushing tear, 

Should recognize my master dear, 

If friendless, low, we meet together, 

Then, sir, your hand — my friend and brother. 



TO MR M'KENZIE. 

Friday first's the day appointed 
By the Right Worshipful anointed, 

To hold our grand procession ; 
To get a blad o' Johnie's morals, piece 

And taste a swatch o' Manson's barrels fcmipla 

I' the way of our profession. 
The Master and the Brotherhood 

Would a' be glad to see you ; 

For me I would be mair than proud more 

To share the mercies wi' you. entertainment 

If Death, th,en, wi' skaith, then, hurt 

Some mortal heart is hechtin', threatening 

Inform him, and storm him, 

That Saturday you'll fecht him. fight 

Robert Burns. 

MOSSGXEL, An. M. 5790. 



burns' poems. 



THE FAREWELL. 

14 The valiant, In himself, what can he suffer T * 

Or what does he regard his single woes ? 
But when, alas! ho multiplies himself, 
To dearer selves, to the loved tender fair, 
. To those whose bliss, whose being hangs upon him. 
To helpless children !— then, oh then • he feels 
The point of misery festering in his heart, 
And weakly weeps his fortune like a coward. 
Such, such ana 1 1 undone !" 

Thomson's Edward and Eleanor m 

Farewell, old Scotia's bleak domains, 
Far dearer than the torrid plains 

Where rich ananas blow I 
Farewell, a mother's blessing dear 1 
A brother's sigh ! a sister's tear ! 

My Jean's heart-rending throe ! 
Farewell, my Bess I though thou'rt bereft 

Of my parental care, 
A faithful brother I have left, 
My part in him thou'lt share ! 
Adieu too, to you too, 

My Smith, my bosom frien*; 
When kindly you mind me, 
Oh then befriend my Jean ! 

What bursting anguish tears my heart I 
From thee, my Jeany, must I part 1 
Thou, weeping, answ'rest " No 1" 
Alas ! misfortune stares my face, 
And points to ruin and disgrace, 

I for thy sake must go ! 
Thee, Hamilton, and Aiken dear, 

A grateful, warm adieu 1 
I, with a much-indebted tear, 
Shall still remember you ! 
All-hail then, the gale then, 

Wafts me from thee, dear shore J 
It rustles, and whistles — 
I'll never see thee more 1 



LINES WRITTEN ON A BANK NOTE. 

Wae worth thy power, provoking leaf, wet 

Fell source o' a* my woe and grief : 

lor lack o' thee I've lost my lass, 

For lack o' thee I scrimp my glass ; stint 

I see the children of affliction 

Unaided, through thy sole restriction. 

I've seen the oppressor's cruel smile 

Amid his hapless victim's spoil, 

And, for thy potence, vainly wished 

To crush the villain in the dust. 



BURNS POEMS. 



9ft 



For lack o' thee I leave this inuch-loved shore, 
.Never perhaps to greet old Scotland more. 

R. B.— Kyle. 



WRITTEN 

ON A BLANK LEAF OF A COPY OF THE POEMS, PRESENTED TO 
AN OLD SWEETHEART, THEN MARRIED. 

Once fondly loved and still remembered dear : 
Sweet early object of my youthful vows ! 

Accept this mark cf friendship, warm, sincere- 
Friendship 1 'tis all cold duty now allows. 

,And when you read the simple artless rhymes, 
One friendly sigh for him — he asks no more, 

"Who distant burns in flaming torrid climes, 
Or haply lies beneath th' Atlantic's roar. 



VERSES WRITTEN UNDER VIOLENT GRIEF. 

Accept the gift a friend sincere 

Wad on thy worth be pressin' ; 
Remembrance oft may start a tear, 
But oh ! that tenderness forbear, 

Though 'twad my sorrows lessen. 

My morning raise sae clear and fair, 

I thought sair storms wad never 
Bedew the scene ; but grief and care 
In wildest fury hae made bare " 

My peace, my hope, for ever I 

You think I'm glad ; oh, I pay weel 

For a' the joy I borrow, 
In solitude — then, then I feel 
I canna to mysel' conceal 

My deeply-ranklin' sorrow. 



would 



00 
sore 



have 



cannot 



Farewell ! within thy bosom free 

A sigh may whyles awaken ; sometimes 

A tear may wet thy laughin' ee, eye 

For Scotia's son, — ance gay like thee— once 

Now hopeless, comfortless, forsaken ! 



THE CALF. 

TO THE REV. MR JAMES STEVEN. 

Right, sir ! your text 111 prove it true, 
Though Heretics may laugh; 



»6 



BURNS' POEMS. 



For instance, there's yoursel' just now, 
A' ken, an unco calf ! 

And should some patron be so kind, 

As bless you wi' a kirk, 
I doubt nae, sir, but then we'll find 

Ye're still as great a stirk. 

Ana in your lug, most reverend James, 
To hear you roar and rowte, 

Few men o' sense will doubt your claims 
To rank among the nowte. 

And when ye're numbered wi' the dead, 

Below a grassy hillock, 
Wi' justice they may mark your head— 

" Here lies a famous bullock I" 



know, great 



ear 

bellow 



cattle 



WILLIE CHALMERS. 

Wi' braw new branks in mickle pride, bridle, mucb 

And eke a braw new brechan, also, collar 

My Pegasus I'm got astride, 

And up Parnassus pechin ; panting 

Whiles owre a bush wi' downward crush, sometimes, over 

The doited beastie stammers ; stupid 

Then up he gets, and off he sets 

For sake of Willie Chalmers. 

I dcubt na, lass, that well-kenned name not, well-known 

May cost a pair o' blushes ; 
I am na stranger to your fame, no 

Nor his warm urged wishes. 
Your bonnie face sae mild and sweet, so 

His honest heart enamours, 
And faith ye'll no be lost a whit, 

Though waired on Willie Chalmers. spent 

Auld truth hersel' might swear ye're fair, 

And honour safely back her, 
And modesty assume your air, 

And ne'er a ane mistak' her: one 

And sic twa love-inspiring een ouch two, eyes 

Might fire even holy palmers ; 
Nae wonder then they've fatal been no 

To honest Willie Chalmers. 

I doubt na fortune may you shore offer 

Some mim-mou'd pouther'd rriestie, prim, powdered 

Fu' lifted up wi' Hebrew lore. 
And band upon his breastis 

But oh ! what signifies to you 
His lexicons and grammurij ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 


. 97 


The feeling heart's- the royal blue, 




And that's wi' Willie Chalmers. 




Some gapin' glowerin' country laird 


staring 


May warsle for your favour; 


wrestle 


May claw his lug, and straik his beard, 


sciatch, ear, stroke 


And hoast up some palaver. 


cough 


My bonnie maid, before ye wed 




Sic clumsy-witted hammers, 




Se-jk Heaven for help, and barefit skelp 


barefoot run 


Awa' wi' Willie Chalmers. 




Forgive the Bard ! my fond regard 




For ane that shares my bosom, 




Inspires my muse to gie'm his dues, 




For not a hair I roose him 


flatter 


May powers aboon unite you soon, 


above 


Time but the more enamours, 




And every year come in mair dear 


ciore 


To you and Willie Chalmers. 




TAM SAMSON'S ELEGY. 




** An honest man's the noblest work of God." 


—Pope. 


Has auld Kilmarnock seen the deil ? 




Or great M'Kinlay thrawn his heel ? 


(a preacher) 


dti Robertson again grown weel 




To preach and read ? 




h Na, war than a' ! cries ilka chiel — 


worte, every one 


Tarn Samson's deid ! 


dead 


Kilmarnock lang may grunt and grane, 


groan 


And sigh, and sob, and greet her lane, 


weep, alone 


And deed her bairns, man, wife, and wean, clothe, child 


In mourning weed ; 




To death she's dearly paid the kane — 


tribute 


Tarn Samson's deid I 




The brethren o' the mystic level 


(masons) 


May hing their head in woefu' bevel, 


hang, posture 


While by their nose the tears will revel, 




Like ony bead ; 


any 


Death's gi'en the lodge an unco devel- - 


blov 


Tarn Samson's deid ! 




, When Winter muffles up his cloak, 




/ And binds the mire like a rock ; 




When to the loch the curlers* flock 


lake 


Wi' gleesome speed, 




VVha will they station at the cock ? — 


who, mark 


Tarn Samson's deid 1 




He was the king o' a' the core, 


company 


To guard,f or draw,} or wick a bore,§ 




* Sse note, p. 53. + Go straight to the niark„ 


% Guard stones at the mark. § Go between flanking stones. 



»8 



BURNS' POEMS. 



Or up the rink like Jehu roar course 

In time o' need; 
But now he lags on death's hog-score — * 

Tarn Samson's deid ! 

Now safe the stately sawmont sail, salmon 

And trouts be-dropp'd wi' crimson hail, spotted 

And eels weel kenn'd for souple tail. well known, supple 

And geds for greed, pikes 
Since dark in death's fish-creel we wail 

Tarn Samson deidl 

Rejoice, ye birring paitricks a* ; whining partridges 

Ye cootie moorcocks, crousely craw ;*f 

Ye maukins, cock your fud fu' braw, hares 

Witbouten dread ; 
Your mortal fae is now awa* — foe 

Tarn Samson's dead 

That woefu' morn be ever mourn 'd 

Saw him in shootin' graith adorn'd, dress 

While pointers round impatient burn'd, 

Frae couples freed ; from 

But, och ! he gaed, and ne'er return'd ! — went 

Tarn Samson's deid I 

In vain auld age his body batters ; 
In vain the gout his ankles fetters ; 
In vain the burns cam' down like waters 

An acre braid ! broad 

Now every auld wife, greeting clatters weeping 

Tarn Samson's dead I 

Owre many a weary hag he limpit, over, moss-ditch 

And aye the tither shot he thumpit, still, other 

Till coward Death behind him jumpit, jumped 

Wi' deadly feide ; enmity 

Now he proclaims, wi' tout o' trumpet, blast 

Tarn Samson's deid ! 

When at his heart he felt the dagger, 
He reel'd his wonted bottle-swagger, 
But yet he drew the mortal trigger 

Wi' weel-aimed heed ; 
" It's five !" he cried, and owre did stagger — 

Tarn Samson's deid I 

Ilk hoary hunter mourn'd a brither ; each, brother 

Ilk sportsman youth bemoan'd a father ; 

Yon auld gray stane, amang the heather, stone 

Marks out his head, 
Where* Burns has wrote in rhyming blether, uensensa 

Tarn Samson's dead ! 

There low he lies, in lasting rest ; 
Perhaps upon his mouldering breast 

♦ Stones not reaching this line are removed, v Feathery legged, bravely crow 



burns' poems. 


99 


Some spitefu' muirfowl bigs her nest, 
To hatch and breed ; 

Alas ! nae mair he'll them molest ! — 
Tarn Samson's deid ! 


builds 
no more 


When August winds the heather wave, 
And sportsmen wander by yon grave, 
Three volleys let his memory crave 

0' pouther and lead, 
Till echo answer frae her cave, 

Tarn Samson's deid ! 


powder 

from 


Heaven rest his saul, whare'er he be 1 
Is th' wish o mony mae than me ; 
He had twa fauts, or maybe three, 

Yet what remead ? 
Ae social, honest man want we : 

Tarn Samson's deid I 


sou] 

more 

two, faults 

remedy 

one 


EPITAPH. 




Tam Samson's weel-worn clay here lies, 
Ye canting zealots spare him ! 

If honestr worth in heaven rise, 
Ye'll mend or ye win near him. 


well 
get 


PER CON TEA. 




Go, Fame, and canter like a filly 
Through a' the streets and neuks o' Killiej 
Tell every social, honest billie 

To cease his grievin', 
For yet, unskaithed by Death's gleg gullie, 

Tam Samson's leevin' ! 


(Kilmarnock) 
fellow 

sharp knife 
living 


TO UK M'ADAM OF CRAIGENG1LLAN. 


Sir, o'er a gill I gat your card, 
I trow it made me proud ; 

" See wha taks notice o' the Bard i" 
I lap and cried fu' loud. 


who takes 
leapt 


"Wha cabes a bit about their jaw, 
The senseless, gawky million : 

I'll cock my nose aboon them a' — 
I'm roosed by Craigengil^n ! 


abovfl 
praised 


'Twas noble, sir ; 'twas like yoursel', 
To grant your high protection : 

A great man's smile, ye ken fu' well, 
Is aye a blest infection ; — 


kno-vv 


Though, by his banes who in a tub 
Matched Macedonian Sandy ! 

On my ain legs through dirt and dub, 
I independent stand aye. 


bones (Diogenes) 

Alexander 

own 



AGO BURNS POEMS. 



And when those legs to guid, warm kail, broth 

Wi' welcome carina bear ine ; 

A lee dyke-side, a sybow-tail, wall, leek 

And barley-scone, shall cheer me. cake 

Heaven spare you lang to kiss the breath 

O' many flowery simmers ! summers 

And bless your bonny lasses baith — both 

I'm tauld they're lo'esome kimmers ! told, lovesome girl* 

And God bless young Dunaskin's laird, 

The blossom of our gentry- ! 
And may he wear an auld man's beard, 

A credit to bis country. 



VERSES 

LEFT IN THE ROOM WHERE HE SLEPT. 

Oh thou dread Power, who reign'st above 

I know thou wilt me hear, 
When for this scene of peace and love, 

I make my prayer sincere ! 

The hoary sire — the mortal stroke, 
Long, long be pleased to spare, 

To bliss his filial little flock, 
And show what good men are. 

She, who her^lovely offspring eyes 

With tender hopes and fears, 
Oh bless her with a mother's joys, 

But spare a mother's tears ! 

Their hope, their stay, their darling youth, 
In manhood's dawning blush — 

Bless him, thou God of love and truth, 
Up to a parent's wish 1 

The beautous, seraph sister-band, 

With earnest tears I pray, 
Thou knowest the snares on every hand — 

Guide thou their steps alway. 

When soon or late they reach that coast, 
O'er life's rough ocean driven, 

May they rejoice, no wanderer lost, 
A family in heaven 1 



THE BRIGS OF AYR. 

INSCRIBED TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ., AYR. 

The simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough, 

Learning his tuneful trade from every bough ; 

The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush, 

Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn bush ; 



BUBNS' POEMS. 101 



The soaring-lark, the perching red-breast shrill, 

Or deep-toned plovers, gray, wild-whistling o'er the hill ; 

Shall he. nurst in the peasant's lowly shed, 

To hardy independence bravely bred, 
By early poverty to hardship steeled, 
And trained to arms in stern misfortune's field- 
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes, 
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes ? 
Or labour hard the panegyric el 
"With all the venal soul of dedicating prose ? 
Xo ! though his artless strains he rudely sings, 
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings, . 
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard, 
Tame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward ! 
Still, if some patron's generous care he trace, 
Skilled in the secret to bestow with grace ; 
When Ballantyne befriends his humble name, 
And hands the rustic stranger up to i: 
"With heartfelt throes his grateful bosom sw€ 
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels. 

'Twaa when the stacks get on their winter hap, covering 

And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap ; thatch, rope, crop 
Potatoe bings are snugged up frae skaith heaps, danger 

Of coming Winter's biting, frosty breath ; 
The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils, 
Unnumbered buds and flowers' delicious spoils. 
Sealed up with frugal care in massive waxen piles, 
Are doomed by man, that tyrant o'er the weak, 
The death to suvfeb, smoored wi" brimstone reek: smothered. 
The thundering guns are heard on every side, [smoke 

The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide ; 
The feathered field-mates, bound by nature's tie, 
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie : 
("What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds. 
And execrates man's savage, ruthless dee :1s !) 
Xae mair the flower in field or meadow springs ; no more 

Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings, 
Except, perhaps, the robin's whistling glee, 
Proud o 1 the height o' some bit half-Ian g tree . short 

The hoary morns precede the sunny days, 
Mild, Calm, serene, wide spreads the noon-tide blaze, 
"While thick the gossamer waves wanton in the rays. 

'Twas in that season, when a simple Bard, 

Unknown and poor, simplicity's reward. 

Ae night, within the ancient brngh of Ayr, one, burgh' 

By whim inspired, or haply prest wi' care, 

He left his bed, and took his wayward route, 

And down by Simpson's wheeled the left about : (a tavern) 

(Whether impelled by all-directing Fate, 

To witness what I after shall nan 

Or whether, rapt in meditation high, 

He wandered out he knew not where or why) 



IC3 



BURNS* POEMS. 



The drowsy Dungeon-clock had numbered two, 

And Wallace Tower had sworn the fact was true : 

The tide-swoln Firth, with sullen sounding roar, 

Through the still night dashed hoarse along the shore. 

All else was hushed as Nature's closed e'e : eyf 

The silent moon shone high o'er tower and tree : 

The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam, 

Crept, gently-crusting, o'er the glittering stream. 

"When lo ! on either hand the listening Bard, 

The clanging sough of whistling wings is heard ; sound 

Two dusky forms dart through the midnight air, 

Swift as the gos drives on the wheeling hare : falcon 

Ane on the Auld Brig his airy shape uprears, 

The ither flutters o'er the rising piers : 

Our warlock Rhymer instantly descried 

The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside. 

(That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke, 

And ken the lingo of the sp'ritual folk ; 

Fays, Spunkies, Kelpies,* a', they can explain them, 

And even the very deils they brawly l^en them.) 

Auld Brig appeared of ancient Pictish race, 

The very wringles Gothic in his face : 

He seemed as he wi' Time had warstl'd lang, 

Yet, teughly doure, he bade an unco bang.J 

New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat, 

That he at Lon'on, frae ane Adams, got ; 

In's hand five taper staves as smooth's a bead, 

Wi' virls and whirlygigums at the head. rings, ornaments 

The Goth was stalking round with anxious search, 

Spying the time-worn flaws in every arch ; 

It chanced his new-come neebour took his ee, 

And e'en a vexed and angry heart had he ! 

Wi' thieveless sneer to see his modish mien, 

He, down the water, gies him his guid-e'en :— 

AULD BRIG. 

I doubt na, Men', ye'll think ye're nae sheepshank,! 

Ance ye were streekit o'er frae bank to bank, once, stretched 

But gin ye be a brig as auld as me — when 

Though, faith, that day I doubt ye'll never see ; 

There'll be, if that date come, I'll wad a boddle, bet a doit 

Some fewer whigmaleeries in your noddle. fancies, head 



one 
other 



o'er 



know 



wel] 



wrestled 



dressed 



neighbour 

spited 
good evening 



NEW BRIG. 

Auld Vandal, ye but show your little mense civility 

Just much about it wi' your scanty sense ; 

Will your poor, narrow footpath of a street — 

Whare twa wheelbarrows tremble when they meet- where two 

Your ruined, formless bulk o' stane and lime, 

Compare wi'.bonnie Brigs o' modern time? 

* Fairies, ignis fatuis, water sprites. f No contemptible one. 

t Toughly obdurate, endured a severe stroke. 



BURNS' POEMS. 103 

There's men o' taste would tak the Ducat Stream, (a ford) 

Though they should cast the very sark and swim, shirt 
Ere they would grate their feelings wi' the view 

Of sic an ugly Gothic hulk as you. such 

ATJLD BRIG. 

Conceited gowk, puff'd up wi' windy pride ! fool 

This mony a year I've stood the flood and tide ; 
And though wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn, age, sore enf eeMed 
I'll be a Brig when ye're a shapeless cairn ! 
As yet ye little ken about the matter, know 

But twa-three winters will inform ye better. two or three 

When heavy, dark, continued a'-day rains, 
Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains ; 
When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil, 
Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil, 
Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course, 
Or haunted Garpal draws his feeble source, 
Aroused by blustering winds and spotting thowes, thaws 

In mony a torrent down his snaw-broo rowes ; water, rolls 

While crashing ice, borne on the roaring speat, flood 

Sweeps dams, and mills, and brigs a' to the gate ; away 

And from Glenbuck* down to the Ratton-keyf 
Auld Ayr is just one lengthened tumbling sea — 
Then down yell hurl, and mat ye never rise ! 
And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouringskies. muddy drops 
A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost, 
That Architecture's noble art is lost ! 

NEW BRIG. 

Fine Architecture, trowth, I needs must say't o't ! indeed 
We are sae thankfu' that we've tint the gate o't I lost, way 
Gaunt, ghastly, ghaist-alluring edifices, ghost 

Hanging with threatening jut, like precipices; 
O'er-arching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves, 
Supporting roofs fantastic, stony groves : 
Windows, and doors in nameless sculpture drest, 
With order, symmetry, or taste unblest ; 
Forms like some bedlam statuary's dream, 
The crazed creations of misguided whim ; 
Forms might be worshipp'd on the bended knee, 
And still the second dread command be free, 
Their likeness is not found on earth, in air, or sea. 
Mansions that would disgrace the building taste 
Of any mason reptile, bird, or beast ; 

Fit only for a doited monkish race, foolish 

Or cuifs of latter times, wha held the notion fools 

That sullen gloom was sterling true devotion ; 
Fancies that our good Br ugh denies protection ! hurgl? 

And soon may they expire,* unblest with resurrection I 

* The source of the River Ayr.—B. 

t A small l*fedin^.-place above the large key,— 



104 burns' poems. 



AULD BRIG. 

Oh ye, my dear remember'd ancient yealings, coevals 

Were ye but here to share my wounded feelings ! 
Ye worthy Proveses, and mony a. Bailie, Provosts, many 

Wha in the paths o' righteousness did toil aye ; 
Ye dainty Deacons and ye douce Conveeners, sober 

To whom our moderns are but causey-cleaners ; scavengers 
Ye godly Councils wha hae blest this town ; 
Ye godly brethren o' the sacred gown, 
Wha meekly gie your hurdies to the smiters ; 
And (what would now be strange) ye godly writers ; 
A' ye douce folk I've borne aboon the broo, above, water 

Were ye but here, what would ye say or do ! 
How would your spirits groan in deep vexation, 
To see each melancholy alteration ; 
And agonizing, curse the time and place 
When ye begat the base degenerate race ! 
Nae langer reverend men, their country's glory, no longer 
In plain braid Scots hold forth a plain braid story ! broad 

Nae langer thrifty citizens and douce, 

Meet owre a pint, or in the council-house ; [giddy 

Butstaumrel, corky-headed, graceless gentry, half-witted, 

The herryment and ruin of the country ; plunderers 

Men three parts made by tailors and by barbers, 
Wha waste your weel-hain'd gear on thae well-saved money 
new Brigs and Harbours ! 

NEW BRIG. 

Now haud you there, for faith you've said enough, hold 
An muckle mair than ye can make to through ; make good 
As for your Priesthood I shall say but little, 
Corbies and Clergy are a shot right kittle : crows, ticklish 

But, under favour o' your langer beard, longer 

. Abuse o' magistrates might weel be spared : well 

To liken them to your auld warld squad, old-world 

I must needs say comparisons are odd. 

In Ayr, wag-wits nae mair can hae a handle no more, have 
To mouth " a citizen," a term o' scandal ; 
Nae mair the Council waddles down the street, 
In all the pomp of ignorant conceit ; 

Men wha grew wise priggin' owre hops and rasins, bargaining 
Or gathered liberal views in bonds and seisins, 
If haply Knowledge, on a random tramp, 
Had shor'd them with a glimmer of his lamp, offered 

And would to Common-sense for once betrayed them, 
Plain, dull Stupidity stept kindly in to aid them. 



What further clish-ma-claver might been said, palarei 

What bloody wars, if Sprites had blood to shed, 
No man can tell; but all before their sight, 
A fairy train appeared in order bright ; 



burns' poems. loe 



Adown the glittering stream they featly danced ; sprucely 

Bright to the moon their' various dresses glanced : 

They footed o'er the watery glass so neat, 

The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet : 

While arts of minstrelsy among them rung, 

And soul-ennobling bards heroic ditties sung. 

Oh had M'Lachlan, thairm-inspiring sage, eat-gn* 

Been there to hear this heavenly band engage, 

When through his dear strathspeys they bore with 

Highland rage ; 
Or when they struck old Scotia's melting airs, 
The lover's raptured joys or bleeding cares ; 
How would his Highland lug been nobler fired, ear 

And even his matchless hand with finer touch inspired ! 
No guess could tell what instrument appeared, 
But all the soul of Music's self was heard ; 
Harmonious concert rung in every part, 
While simple melody poured movie g on the heart. 

The Genius of the stream in front appears, 
A venerable chief advanced in years ; 
His hoary head with water-lilies crowned, 
His manly leg with garter tangle bound. 
Next came the lovelist pair in all the ring, 
Sweet Female Beauty hand-in-hand with Spring ; 
Then, crowned with flowery hay, came Rural Joy, 
And Summer, with his fervid-beaming eye : 
All cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn, 
Led yellow Autumn, wreathed with nodding corn ; 
Then winter's time-bleached locks did hoary show, 
By Hospitality with cloudless brow. 
Next followed Courage, with his martial stride, 
From where the Feal wild woody coverts hide ;* 
Benevolence, with mild, benigant air, 
A female form, came from the towers of Stair: 
Learning and Worth in equal measures trode,f 
From simple Catrine, their long-loved abode : 
Last, white-robed Peace, crowned with a hazel wreath, 
To rustic Agriculture did bequeath 
The broken iron instruments of death ; 
At sight of whom our Sprites forgat their kindling wrath. 



LINES ON MEETING WITH BASIL, LORD DAER. 

This wot ye all whom it concerns, 
I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns, 

October twenty-third, 
A ne'er-to-be-forgotten day, 

Sae far I sprachled up the brae, so, clambered 

I dinner'd wi' a Lord. 

I've been at drucken writers' feasts, drunken 

Nay, been blix' fou 'mang godly priests, drunls 

Wi' reTerence be it spoken ; 

* CoilofielcL * Duirald Stewart. 



10G 



burns' poems. 



I've even joined the honour'd jorum, drinking-vessel 

When mighty squireships of the quorum 

Their hydra drouth did sloken. thirst, slake 

But wi' a Lord ! — stand out my shin, 
A Lord — a Peer — an Earl's son ! 

Up higher yet my bonnet ! 
And sic a Lord 1 — lang Scotch ells twa, such 

Our Peerage he o'erlooks them a', 

As I look o'er my sonnet. 

But oh for Hogarth's magic power ! 

To show Sir Bardie's willyart glower, bewildered look 

And how he star'd and stammer'd, 
When goavan, as if led wi' branks, moving stupi<Hy,bridle 
And stumpin' on his ploughman shanks, leg* 

He in the parlour hammer'd. 

I sidling shelter'd in a nook, 
And at his Lordship steal't a look, 

Like some portentous omen ; 
Except good sense and social glee, 
And (what surprised me) modesty, 

I marked nought uncommon. 

I watch'd the symptoms o' the great, 
The gentle pride, the lordly state, 

The arrogant assuming; 
But nought o' pride, nae pride had he, 
Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see, 

Mair than an honest ploughman. 

Then from his Lordship I shall learn 
Henceforth to meet with unconcern 

One rank as weel's another ; 
Nae honest worthy man need care 
To meet with noble youthful Daer, 

For he but meets a brother. 



EPISTLE TO MAJOR LOGAN. 

Hail, thairm-inspirin', rattlin' Willie ! 
Though Fortune's road be rough and hilly 
To every fiddling, rhyming billie, 

We never heed, 
But take it like the unbacked filly, 

Proud o' her speed. 

When idly goavan whyles we saunter, 

Yirr, Fancy barks, awa we canter 

Up hill, down brae, till some mishanter, 

Some black bog-hole, 
Arrests us, then the scaith and banter 

We're forced to thole. 



fiddle-string 



fellow 



[sometimes 
mCTing stupidly 



accident 



h&rn 

bear 



BURNS* POEMS. 



107 



Hale be your heart ! — hale be your fiddle ! 

Lang may your elbock jink and diddle elbow move nimbly 

To cheer you through the weary widdle, wriggle 

O' this wild waiT, world 

Until you on a crummock driddle staff, saunter 

A gray-haired carle. 

Come wealth, come poortith, late or soon, poverty 

Heaven send your heart-strings aye in tune, 

And screw your temper-pins aboon above 

A fifth or mair, more 

The melancholious, lazy croon, murmur 

0' cankrie care. peevish 

May still your life from day to day 
Xae " lente largo * in the play, 
But " allegretto forte " gay 

Harmonious flow 
A sweeping, kindling, bauld strathspey— bold 

Encore ! bravo ! 

A blessing on the cheery gang 
Wha dearly like a jig or sang, 
And never think o' right and wrang 

By square and rule, 
But as the clegs o' feeling stang, gad-flies, sting 

Are wise or fool. 

My hand-waled ba2? keep hard in chase chosen 

The harpy, hoodock, purse-proud race, miserly 

Wha count on poortith as disgrace — poverty 

Their tuneless hearts ! 
May fireside discords jar a bass 

To a' their parts ! 

But come, your hand, my careless brither, brother 

F th' ither warl', if there's anither — ■ other 

And that there is I*ve little swither doubt 

About the matter — 

We cheek for chow shall jog thegither ; cheek by jole 

I'se ne'er bid better. expect 

"We've faults and failings — granted clearly, 

We're frail backsliding mortals merely, 

Eve's bonnie squad, priest wyte them sheerly blame, entirely 

Eor our grand fa' ; 
But still, but still— I like them dearly— 

Bless ! bless them a' 1 

Ochon for poor Castalian drinkers, 

When they fa' foul o' earthly jinkers, sprightly girls 

The witching, dear, delicious blinkers eyes 

Hae put me hyte, mad 

And gart me weet my waukrife winkers made, wet, sleepless 

Wi' girnin' spite. grinning 

But by yon moon ! — and that's high swearin' — 
And every star within my hearin' ! 



1 OS BURNS* POEMS. 



And by her een wha was a dear ane ! eyes who 

I'll ne'er forget ; 

I hope to gie the jads a clearin' lasses 

In fair-play yet. 

My loss I mourn, but not repent it, 

1*11 seek my pursie whare I tint it, purse, where, lost 

Ance to the Indies I were wonted, when, arrived 

Some cantrip hour, witching 
By some sweet elf I'll yet be dinted, 

Then, viveVamour ! 

Faites mes baise mavis respectueuses, 

To sentimental sister Susie, 

And honest Lucky ; no to roose you, not, praise 

Ye may be proud, 
That sic a couple fate allows ye such 

To grace your blood. 

Is ae mair at present can I measure, no more 

And trowth, my rhymin' ware's nae treasure ; indeed 

"But when in Ayr, some half-hour's leisure, 

Be't light, be't dark, 
Sir Bard will do himself the pleasure 

To call at Park. 

Robert Burks. 

MOSSGIEL, October 30, 1786. 



ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH. 

Edina ! Scotia's darling seat ! 

All hail thy palaces and towers, 
Where once beneath a monarch's feet 

Sat Legislation's sovereign powers ! 
From marking wildly-scattered flower-, 

As on the banks of Ayr I strayed, 
And singing, lone, the lingering hours, 

I sheltered in thy honoured shade. 

Here wealth still swells the golden tide, 

As busy Trade his labour plies ; 
There Architecture's noble pride 

Bids elegance and splendour rise ; 
Here Justice, from her native skies, 

High wields her balance and her rod ; 
There Learning, with his eagle eyes, 

Seeks Science in her coy abode. 

Thy sons, Edina ! social, kind, 
With open arms the stranger hail ; 

Their views enlarged, their liberal mind, 
Above the narrow, rural vale ; 

Attentive still to sorrow's wail, 
Or modest merit's silent claim : 



burns' poems. 103 



And never may their sources fail ! 
And never envy blot their name ! 

Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn, 

Gay as the guilded summer sky, 
Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn, 

Dear as the raptured thrill of joy ! 
Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye, 

Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine ; 
I see the Sire of Love on high, 

And own his work indeed divine 1 

There, watching high the least alarms, 

Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar ; 
Like some bold veteran, gray in arms, 

And mark'd with many a seamy scar ; 
The ponderous wall and massy bar, 

Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock ; 
Have oft withstood assailing war. 

And oft repelled the invader's shock. 

With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears, 

I view that noble, stately dome, 
Where Scotia's kings of other years, 

Famed heroes ! had their royal home : 
Alas, how changed the times to come ! 

Their royal name low in the dust ! 
Their hapless race wild-wandering roam, 

Though rigid law cries out, 'twas just I 

Wild beats my heart to trace your steps, 

W T hose ancestors, in days of yore, 
Through hostile ranks and ruined gaps, 

Old Scotia's bloody lion bore : 
Even I who sing in rustic lore, 

Haply, my sires have left their shed, 
xVnd faced grim danger's loudest roar, 

Bold-following where your fathers led I 

Edina! Scotia's darling seat ! 

All hail thy palaces and towers. 
Where once beneath a monarch's feet 

Sat Legislation's sovereign powers ! 
From marking wildly scattered flowers, 

As on the banks of Ayr I strayed, 
And singing, lone, the lingering hours, 

I shelter in thy honoured shade. 



ON CHARLES EDWARD'S BIRTH-DA f. 

False flatterer, Hope, away I 
Nor think to lure us as in days of yore ; 

We solemnize this sorrowing natal-day 
To prove our loyal truth ; we can no more ; 



UO BURNS* POEMS. 

And owning Heaven's mysterious sway, 
Submissive low adore. 

Ye honoured mighty dead ! 
Who nobly perished in the glorious cause, 
Your king, your country, and her laws ! 

From great Dundee who smiling Victory led, 
And fell a martyr in her arms 
(What breast of northern ice but warms ?) 

To bold Balrnerino's undying name, 

Whose soul of fire, lighted at Heaven's high flame, 
Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim. 

Nor unavenged your fate shall be, 

It only lags the fatal hour ; 
Your blood shall with incessant cry 

Awake at last th' unsparing power ; 
As from the cliff, with thundering course, 

The snowy ruin smokes along, 
With doubling speed and gathering force, 
Till deep it crashing whelms the cottage in the vale 



TO MISS LOGAN, WITH BEATTIE'S POEMS, 

/ 

AS A NEW-YEAR'S GIFT. 

January 1, 17S7. 
Again the silent wheels of time 

Their annual round have driven, 
And you, though scarce in maiden prime, 
Are so much nearer heaven. 

No gifts have I from Indian coasts 

The infant year to hail ; 
I send you more than India boasts 

In Edwin's simple tale. 

Our sex with guile and faithless love 

Is charged, perhaps, too true ; 
But may, dear maid, each lover prove 

An Edwin still to you ! 



BURNS TO THE GUDEWIFE OF WAUCHOPE HOUSE. 

I mind it weel in early date, well 

When I was beardless, young, and blate, bashful 

And first could thrash the barn ; 
Or haud a yoking at the pleugh ; hold, team, plough 

And though forfoughten sair eneugh, fatigued sore 

Yet unco proud to learn : very 

When first among the yellow corn 

A roan I reckon'd was. 



BURNS' POEMS. 


111 


And wi' the lave ilk merry morn 


rest each 


Could rank my rig and lass, 




Still shearing, and clearing, 




The tither stooked raw, 


other, ro\r 


Wi' claivers and haivers, 


talk, nonsensfl 


"Wearing the day awa. 




E'en then, a wish, I mind its power — 




A wish that to my latest hour 




Shall strongly heave my breast — 




That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake, 




Some usefu' plan or beuk could make. 


book 


Or sing a sang at least. 




The rough burr-thrissle, spreading wide 


Scotch thistle 


Amang the bearded bere, 


"barley 


T turned the weeder-clips aside, 


weeding-iron 


And spared the symbol dear : 




No nation, no station, 




My envy e'er could raise, 




A Scot still, but blot still, 




I knew nae higher praise. 




But still the elemeats o' sang 




In formless jumble, right and wrang, 




Wild floated in my brain ; 




Till on that har'st I said before, 


harvest 


My partner in the merry core, 


company 


She roused the forming strain ; 




I see her yet, the sonsie quean, stou 


t <fc good-natured 


That lighted up her jingle, 




Her witching smile, her pauky een 


sly eyes 


That gart my heart-strings tingle : 


made 


I fired, inspired, 




At every kindling keek, 


glance 


But bashing and dashing, 




I feared aye to speak. 




Health to the sex, ilk guid chiel says, 


each good fello* 


Wi' merry dance in winter days, 




And we to share in common : 




The gust o' joy, the balm of woe, 




The saul o' life, the heaven below, 


soul 


Is rapture-giving woman. 




Ye surly sumphs, who hate the name, 


fools 


Be mindfu' o' your mither ; 




She, honest woman, may think shame 




That ye're connected with her. 




Ye're wae men, ye're nae men, 


poor, not 


That slight the lovely dears ; 




To shame ye, disclaim ye, 




Hk honest birkie swears. 


each, fellow 


For you, no bred to barn and byre, 




Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre, 


wha 


Thank3 to you for your line : 





IIS 



BURN3* P0E1T.S. 



The marled plaid ye kindly spare, 
By me should gratefully be ware ; 

'Twad please me to the Nine. 
I'd be mair vauntie o' my hap, 

Douce hinging owre my curple, 
Than ony ermine ever lap, 
Or proud imperial purple. 

Fareweel then, lang heal then, 

And plenty be your fa', 
May losses and crosses 
Ne'er at your hallan ca' ! 



chequered 
worn 

proud, covering 

sober, back 

any, leapt 



fate 
inner door 



ON WILLIE SMELLIE * 

Willie Smellie to Crochallan came, 
The old cocked hat, the gray surtout, the same ; 
His bristling beard just rising in its might ; 
*Twas four long nights and days till shaving night ; 
His uncombed grizzly locks, wild staring, thatched 
A head for thought profound and clear unmatched ; 
Yet though his caustic wit was biting rude, 
His heart was warm, benevolent, and good. 



ON WILLIE DUNBAR. 

As I cam by Crochallan, 

I cannilie keekit ben ; 
Rattlin', roarin' Willie 

Was sitting at yon boord-en' ; 
Sitting at yon boord-en', 

And amang gude companie ; 
Rattlin', roarin' Willie, 

Ye're welcome hame to me ! 



gently looked in 



board-end 



TO MRS DAVID WILSON. 

My blessings on ye, honest wife, 

I ne'er was here before ; 
YeVe wealth o' gear for spoon and knife — 

Heart could not wish for more. 

Heaven keep you clear of sturt and strife, 

Till far ayont four score, 
And if I keep my health and life, 

I'll ne'er srae by your door 1 



trouble 
beyond 



* The printer of hla poems. 



BURNS' POEMS. 113 



VERSES UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF FERGTTSSON. 

Shame on ungrateful inan 5 that can be pleased, 

And yet can starve the author of the pleasure J 

Oh thou, my elder brother in misfortune, 

By far my elder brother in the Muses, 

With tears I pity thy unhappy fate ! 

Why is the Bard unpitied by the world, 

Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures ? 



TO A HAGGIS. 

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, good luck, plump 

Great chieftain o' the puddin'-race ! 

Aboon them a' ye tak your place, above 

Painch, tripe, or thairm : 

Weel are ye wordy of a grace worthy 

As lang's my arm. long 

The groaning trencher there ye fill, 
Your hurdies like a distant hill, 
Your pin wad help to mend a mill 

In time o* need, 
While through your pores the dews distil 

Like amber bead. 

His knife see rustic labour dight, clean 

And cut you up wi' ready slight, 
Trenching your gushing entrails bright 

Like ony ditch ; any 

And then, oh what a glorious sight, 

Warm-reekin', rich ! smoking 

Then horn for horn they stretch and strive, 

Shame on the hindmost, on they drive, 

Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve stomachs, by and by 

Are bent like drums ; 
Then auld guid man, maist like to rive, burst 

" Bethankit " hums. returns thanks 

Is there that o'er his French ragout, 

Or olio that wad staw a sow, would nauseate 

Or fricassee wad mak her spew 

Wi' perfect scunner, disgust 

Looks down wi' sneerin', scornfu' view 

On sic a dinner ! 

Poor fellow ! see him owre his trash, over 

As feckless as a withered rash, feeble 

lik* spindle shank a good whip-lash. thin legs, good 

His nieve a nit; fist, nut 
1'hrC'Ugb .bloody flood or field to ; a ; 

Oh how unfit! 



Hi 



burns' poems. 



But mark the rustic, haggis-fed, 

The trembling earth resounds his tread, 

Clap in his walie nieve a blade, put, lusty flat 

Ple'll mak it whissle ; whiz 

And legs, and arms, and heads will sned, shear 

Like taps o* thrissle. tops of thistles 

Yq powers wha mak mankind your care, who make 

And dish them out their bill o' fare, 

Auld Scotland wants nae skinkin ware thin stuff 

That jaups in luggies ; splashes in howls 

But, if ye wish her gratefu' pray'r, 

Gie her a Haggis 1 give 



EXTEMPORE IN THE COURT OF SESSION. 
Tune — Killiecrankie. 
Lord Advocate. 

He clenched his pamphlets in his fist, 

He quoted and he hinted, 
Till in a declamation-mist, 

His argument he tint it : lost 

He gaped for't, he graiped for't, groped 

He fand it was awa', man ; found, away 

But what his common-sense came short, 

He eked out wi' law, man. 

Mr Erskine. 

Collected Harry stood a wee, 

Then opened out his arm, man : 
His lordship sat wi' ruefu' e'e, eye 

And eyed the gathering storm, man ; 
Like wind-driven hail, it did assail, 

Or torrents owre a linn, man ; cascade 

The Bench sae wise lift up their eyes, so 

Half-wauken'd wi* the din, man. awakened 



PROLOGUE, SPOKEN BY MR WOODS ON HIS 
BENEFIT NIGHT. 

Monday, April 16, 1787. 
When by a generous Public's kind acclaim, 
That dearest meed is granted — honest fame ; 
When here your favour is the actor's lot, 
Nor even the man in private life forgot ; 
What breast so dead to heavenly Virtue's glow, 
But heaves impassioned with the grateful throe. 



BURKS' POEMS. 115 



Poor is the task to please a barbarous throng, 
It needs no Siddons' powers in Southern's song ; 
But here an ancient nation famed afar, 
.For genius, learning high, as great in war — 
Hail, Caledonia, name for ever dear ! 
Before whose son's I'm honoured to appear I 
"Where every science — every nobler art — 
That can inform the mind, or mend the heart, 
Is known ; as grateful nations oft have found 
Far as the rude barbarian marks the bound. 
Philosophy, no idle pedant dream, 

Here holds her search by heaven-taught Reason's beam ; 
Here Historj' paints with elegance and force 
The tide of Empire's fluctuating course ; 
Here Douglas forms wild Shakspeare into plan, 
And Harley* rouses all the god in man, 
When well-formed Taste and sparkling Wit unite 
With manly Lore, or female Beauty bright 
(Beauty, where faultless symmetry and grace, 
Can only charm us in the second place), 
Witness my heart, how oft with panting fear, 
As on this night, I've met these judges here ! 
But still the hope Experience taught to live, 
Equal to judge — you're candid to forgive. 
Ko hundred-headed Riot here we meet, 
With Decency and Law beneath his feet ; 
Nor Insolence assumes fair Freedom's name ; 
Like Caledonians, you applaud or blame, 

Oh thou dread Power ! whose empire-giving hand 
Has oft been stretched to shield the honoured land ! 
Strong may she glow with all her ancient fire ! 
May every son be worthy of his sire ! 
Firm may she rise with generous disdain 
At Tyranny's or direr Pleasure's chain 1 
Still self-dependent in her native shore, 
Bold may she brave grim Danger's loudest roai\ 
Till Fate the curtain drops on worlds to be no more. 



WILLIE'S AWA. 

Auld chuckie Reekie'sf sair distrest, sore 

Down droops her ance weel-burnished crest, once 

Nae joy her bonny buskit nest no, decorated 

Can yield ava, at all 
Her darling bird that she lo'es best — 

Willie's awa! 

Oh "Willie was a witty wight, wise 

And had o' things an unco slight ; was clever-handod 
Auld Reekie aye ho keepit tight, 

And trig and braw : neat 

» The *• Man of Feeling:,' f A familiar tobriqv.et for Edinburgh. 



116 



BURNS* POEMS. 



drew 



boldest 
more 

fellow, gold 



But now they'll busk her like a fright — 
Willie's awa ! 

The stiffest o' them a ho bowed ; 
The bauldest o' them a' he cowed ; 
They durst nae mair than he allowed, 

That was a law : 
We've lost a birkie weel worth gowd — 

Willie's awa ! 

Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks, and fools, simpleton, slut, silly 

Frae colleges and boarding-schools, 

May sprout like simmer puddock-stools (a fungus) 

In glen or shaw ; vrood 

He wha could brush them down to mools, dust 

Willie's awa * 

The brethren o' the Commerce-Ohaumer chamber 

May mourn their loss wi' doolfu' clamour ; sorrowful 

He was a dictionar and grammar 

Amang them a' ; 
I fear they'll now mak mony a stammer— 

Willie's awa I 

Nae mair we see his leyee door 
Philosophers and poets pour, 
And toothy critics by the score, 

In bloody raw I rcvw 

The adjutant o' a' the core, company 

Willie's awa ! 

Now worthy Gregory's* Latin face, 

Tytler'sf and Greenfield's^ modest grace ; 

Mackenzie§, Stewart,[| sic a brace such 

As Rome ne'er saw ; 
They a' maun meet some ither place, must, other 

Willie's awa 1 

Poor Burns — e'en Scotch drink canna quicken, cannot 

chirps 

mother, brood 

hooded-crow 

given, great 



He cheeps like some bewilder'd chicken, 
Scar'd frae its minnie and the clecken, 

By hoodie-craw ; 
Grief's gien his heart an unco kickin* — 

Willie's awa! 

Now every sour-mou'd girnin' blellum, 
And Calvin's folk, are fit to fell him ; 
And self-conceited critic skellum 

His quill may draw ; 
He wha could brawiie ward their bellum 

Willie's awa ! 

Up wimpling stately Tweed I've sped, 
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed, 



[talker 
mouthed grinning. 

worthless fellow 

well, force 

winding 



* l>r James Gregory, 
^ Lord Woodhouelee. 
% Professor Greenfield. 



\ Author of " Man of Feeling.' 

Professor Dugald StewaK. 



BURNS' POEMS. 



117 



And Ettrick banks now roaring red, 
While tempests blaw ; 

But every joy and pleasure's fled — 
Willie's awa I 

May I be slander's common speech ; 
A text for infamy to preach ; 
And lastly, streekit out to bleach 

In winter snaw ; 
When I forget thee, Willie Creach, 

Though far awa ! 

May never wicked Fortune touzle him 
May never wicked men bamboozle him 
Until a pow as auld's Methusalem 

He canty claw 1 
Then to the blessed Xew Jerusalem, 

Fleet wing away 1 



blow 



stretched 
snoAv 



handle roughh 

head 
cheerful, scratch 



TO SIMON GRAY. 

Dear Symon Gray, 

The other day, 

WTien you sent me some rhyme, 
1 could not then just ascertain 

Its worth, for want of time. 
But now to-day, good Mr Gray, 

I've read it o'er and o'er, 
Tried all my skill, but find I'm still 

Just where I was before. 



COMPOSED 

QV LEAVING A PLACE IN THE HIGHLANDS WHERE HE HAD 
BEEN KINDLY ENTERTAINED. 

When death's dark stream I ferry o'er— 

A time that surely shall come- 
In heaven itself I'll ask no more 

Than just a Highland welcome ! 



ON READING IN A NEWSPAPER 

THE DEATH OF JOHN M'LEOD, ESQ., 

SS OTHER TO A YOUNG LADY, A PARTICULAR FRIEND OF TR£ 
AUTHOR'S. 

Sad thy tale, thou idle page, 

And rueful thy alarms — 
Death tears the brother of her love 

From Isabella's arms. 



lid BURNS' POEMS. 

Sweetly decked with pearly dew 
The morning rose may blow, 

But cold successive noontide blasts 
May lay its beauties low. 

Fair on Isabella's morn 
The sun propitious smiled, 

But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds 
Succeeding hopes beguiled. 

Fate oft tears the bosom cords 
That nature finest strung ; 

So Isabella's heart was formed, 
And so that heart was wrung. 

Were it in the poet's power, 
Strong as he shares the grief 

That pierces Isabella's heart, 
To give that heart relief ! 

Dread Omnipotence, alone, 
Can heal the wound he gave — 

Can point the brimful grief-worn eyes 
To scenes beyond the grave. 

Virtue's blossoms there shall blow, 
And fear no withering blast ; 

There Isabella's spotless worth 
Shall happy be at last. 



ON THE DEATH OF SIR JAMES HUNTER BLAIR. 

The lamp of day, with ill-presaging glare, 
Dim, cloudy, sank beneath the western wave ; 

The inconstant blast howled through the darkening air, 
And hollow whistled in the rocky cave. 

Lone as I wandered by each cliff and dell, 
Once the loved haunts of Scotia's royal train ;* 

Or mused whe^e limpid streams once hallowed well,")" 
Or mouldering ruins marked the sacred fane. J 

The increasing blast roared round the. beetling rocks, 
The clouds, swift-winged, flew o'er the starry sky, 

The groaning trees untimely shed their locks, 
And shooting meteors caught the startled eye. 

The paly moon rose in the livid east, 

And 'mong the cliffs disclosed a stately form, 

In weeds of woe that frantic beat her breast, 
And mixed her wailings with the raving storm. 

Wild to my heart the filial pulses glow, 

*Twas Caledonia's trophied shield I viewed : 

Her form majestic drooped in pensive woe, 
The lightning of her eye in tears imbued. 

* Park, Holyrood. f st Anthony's Well. t St Anthony's Chapel. 



BURNS' poems. 119 



Reversed that spear, redoubtable in war, 
Reclined that banner, erst in fields unfurled, 

That like a deathful meteor gleamed afar, 
And braved the mighty monarchs of the world. 

* My patriot son fills an untimely grave !" 
With accents wild and lifted arms — she cried 

"Low lies the hand that oft was stretched to save, 
Low lies the heart that swelled with honest pride. 

" A weeping country joins a widow's tear ; 

The helpless poor mix with the orphan's cry ; 
The drooping Arts surround their patron's bier ; 

And grateful Science heaves the heartfelt sigh ! 

" I saw my sons resume their ancient fire ; 

I saw fair Freedom's blossoms richly blow : 
But ah ! how Hope is born but to expire ! 

Relentless Fate has laid their guardian low. 

" My patriot falls, but shall he lie unsung, 

While empty greatness saves a worthless name ? 

No : every Muse shall join her tuneful tongue, 
And future ages hear his growing fame. 

" And I will join a mother's tender cares, 

Through future times to make his virtue last ; 

That distant years may boast of other Blairs !" 
She said, and vanished with the sweeping blast. 



TO MISS FERRIER, 

ENCLOSING THE FOREGOING ELEGY ON SIR J. H. BLAIR. 

Nae heathen name shall I prefix 

Frae Pindus or Parnassus ; 
Auld Reekie dings them a' to sticks, (Edinburgh) beats 

For rhyme-inspiring lasses. 

Jove's tunefu' dochters three times three daughters 

Made Homer deep their debtor ; 

But, gi'en the body half an e*e, eye 

Nine Ferriers wad done better ! would 

Last day my mind was in a bog, 

Down George'? Street I stoited ; tottered 

A creeping cauld prosaic fog cold 

My very senses doited. stupified 

Do what I dought to set her free, could 

My saul lay in the mire ; soul 

Ye turned a neuk — I saw your e'e— corner, eye 
She took the wins like fire 1 



ISO BURNS' POEMS, 



The mournfu' sang I here enclose, song 

In gratitude I send you ; 
And [wish and] pray in rhyme sincere, 

A' sude things may attend you ! good 



LINES ON STIRLING. 

Here Stuarts once in triumph reigned, 
And laws for Scotland's weal ordained ; 
But now unroofed their palace stands, 
Their sceptre's fallen to other hands. 
The injured Stuarts' line are gone, 
A race outlandish fill their throne — 
An idiot race to honour lost : 
Who know them best, despise them most. — Burns. 
On some one reproving him for writing these lines, Bums added)— 

" Rash mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name 

Shall no longer appear in the records of fame ; 

Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible, 

Says the more 'tis a truth, sir, the more 'tis a libel ? " 



WRITTEN 

SVITH A PENCIL OVER THE CHIMNEY-PIECE IN THE PARLOUR OP 
THE INN AT KENMORE, TAYMOTJTH. 

Admiring Nature in her wildest grace, 
These northern scenes with weary feet I trace ; 
O'er many a winding dale and painful steep, 
The abodes of covied grouse and timid sheep, 
My savage journey, curious, I pursue, 
Till famed Breadalbane opens to my view. 
The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides, 
The woods, well scattered, clothe their ample sides ; 
The outstretching lake, embosomed ? mong the hills, 
The eye with wonder and amazement fills ; 
The Tay, meandering sweet in infant pride, 
The palace, rising on its verdant side ; 
The lawns, wood-fringed in Nature's native taste ; 
The hillocks, dropt in Nature's careless haste ; 
The arches, striding o'er the new-born stream ; 
The village, glittering in the noontide beam — 

***** 
Poetic ardours in my bosom swell, 
Lone wandering by the hermit's mossy cell : 
The sweeping theatre of hanging woods ; 
Th' incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods — 
***** 
Here Poesy might wake her heaven-taught lyre, 
And look through Nature with creative fire : 



burns' poems. 



i?) 



Here to the wrongs of fate half reconciled, 
Misfortune's lightened steps might wander wild ; 
And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds, 
Find balm to soothe her bitter rankling wounds : 
Here,heartstruck Grief might heavenward stretch her scan, 
And injured Worth forget and pardon man. 
* * * * * 



THE HUMBLE PETITION OF BRUAR WATER TO 
THE NOBLE DUKE OF ATHOLE. 

My lord, I know your noble ear 

Woe ne'er assails in vain ; 
Emboldened thus, I beg you'll hear 

Your humble slave complain, 
How saucy Phoebus' scorching beams, 

In flaming summer-pride, 
Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams, 

And drink my crystal tide. 

The lightly-jumpin' glower in trouts, staring | 

That through my waters play, 
If, in their random, wanton spouts, 

They near the margin stray ; 
If, hapless chance ! they linger lang, long 

I'm scorching up so shallow, 
They're left the whitening stanes amang, among 

In gasping death to wallow. 

Last day I grat wi' spite and teen, wept, vexation 

As Poet Burns came by, 
That to a bard I should be seen 

Wi' half my channel dry : 
A panegyric rhyme, I ween, 

Even as I was he shored me ; promised 

But had I in my glory been, 

He, kneeling, wad adored me. would have 

Here, foaming down the shelvy rocks, 

In twisting strength I rin ; 
There, high my boiling torrent smokes. 

Wild roaring o'er a linn : cascade 

Enjoying large each spring and well, 

As Nature gave them me, 
I am, although I say't mysel, 

Worth gaun a mile to see. going 

Would, then, my noble master please 

To grant my highest wishes, 
He'll shade my banks wi' towering trees. 

And bonnie spreading bushes. 
Delighted doubly, then, my lord, 

You'll wander on my banks, 
And listen mony a grateful bird 

Return you tuneful thanks. 



122 BURNS' POEMS. 



The sober laverock, warbling wild, lark 

Shall to the skies aspire ; 
The gowdspink, Music's gayest child, croldflnch 

Shall sweetly join the choir : 
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear, linnet 

The mavis mild and mellow; thrush 

The robin pensive autumn cheer, 

In all her locks of yellow. 

This, too, a covert shall insure 

To shield them from the storm ; 
And coward maukin sleep secure, har* 

Low in her grassy form : 
Here shall the shepherd make his seat, 

To weave his crown of flowers ; 
Or find a sheltering safe retreat 

From prone descending showers. 

And here, by sweet endearing stealth, 

Shall meet the loving pair, 
Despising worlds with all their wealth 

As empty idle care. 
The flowers shall vie in all their charms 

The hour of heaven to grace, 
And birks extend their fragrant arms birches 

To screen the dear embrace. 

Here haply too, at vernal dawn, 

Some musing bard may stray, 
And eye the smoking, dewy lawn, 

And misty mountain gray ; 
Or, by the reaper's nightly beam, 

Mild-chequering through the trees, 
Rave to my darkly-dashing stream, 

Hoarse swelling on the breeze. 

Let lofty firs, and ashes cool, 

My lowly banks o'erspread, 
And view, deep-bending in the pool, 

Their shadow's watery bed 1 
Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest 

My craggy cliffs adorn ; 
And, for the little songster's nest, 

The close embowering thorn. 

So may old Scotia's darling hope, 

Your little angel band, 
Spring, like their fathers, up to prop 

Their honoured native land ! 
So may, through Albion's farthest ken, 

To social-flowing glasses, 
The grace be — " Athole's honest men, 

And Athole's bonnie lasses I" 



BURNS' POEMS. 12i 



WRITTEN 

WFITLE STANDING BY THE FALL OF FYERS, NEAR LOCH NESS 

Among the heathy hills and ragged woods, 
The foaming Fyers pours his mossy floods; 
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds, 
Where, through a shapeless breach, his stream resounds. 
As high in air the bursting torrents flow, 
As deep recoiling surges foam below ; 
Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends, 
And viewless Echo's ear, astonished, rends. 
Dim seen, through rising mists and ceasless showers, 
The hoary cavern, wide surrounding, lowers ; 
Still through the gap the struggling river toils, 
And still below, the horrid caldron boils - 
* * * * 



CASTLE-GORDON. 

Tune — Moray. 

Streams that glide in orient plains, 
Never bound by Winter's chains ; 

Glowing here on golden sands, 
There commixed with foulest stains 

From tyranny's empurpled band ; 
These, their richly-gleaming waves, 
I leave to tyrants and their slaves ; 
Give me the stream that sweetly laves 
The banks by Castle-Gordon. 

Spicy forests, ever gay, 
Shading from the burning ray 

Helpless wretches sold to toil, 
Or the ruthless native's way, 

Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil: 
Woods that ever verdant wave, 
I leave the tyrant and the slave ; 
Give me the groves that lofty brave 
The storms by Castle-Gordon. 

Wildly here, without control, 
Nature reigns and rules the whole ; 

In that sober, pensive mood, 
Dearest to the feeling soul, 

She plants the forest, pours the flood ; 
Life's poor day I'll musing rave, 
And find at night a sheltering cave, 
Where waters flow and wild woods wave, 
By bonnie Castle-Gordon. 



1?4 burns' poems. 



ON SCARING SOME WATER-FOWL IN LOCH TI3RIT. 

Why, ye tenants of the lake, 
For me your -watery haunt forsake ? 
Tell me, fellow-creatures, why 
At my presence thus you fly ? 
Why disturb your social joys, 
Parent, filial, kindred ties ? — 
Common friend to you and me, 
Nature's gifts to all are free : 
Peaceful keep your dimpling wave, 
Busy feed, or wanton lave ; 
Or, beneath the sheltering rock, 
Bide the surging billow's shock. 

Conscious, blushing for our race, 
Soon, too soon, your fears I trace. 
Man, your proud usurping foe, 
Would be lord of all below : 
Plumes himself in Freedom's pride, 
Tyrant stern to all beside. 
The eagle, from the cliffy brow, 
Marking you his prey below, 
In his breast no pity dwells, 
Strong necessity compels : 
But man, to whom alone is given 
A ray direct from pitying Heaven, 
Glories in his heart humane — 
And creatures for his pleasure slain. 
In these savage, liquid plains, 
Only known to wandering swains, 
Where the mossy riv'let strays, 
Far from human" haunts and ways, 
All on Nature you depend, 
And life's poor season peaceful spend 

Or, if man's superior might 
Dare invade your native right, 
On the lofty ether borne, 
Man with all his powers you scorn 
Swiftly seek, on clanging wings, 
Other lakes and other spring?; 
And the foe you cannot brave, 
Scorn at least to be his slave. 



TO MISS CRULKSHANK, A VERY YOUNG LADY- 

VvTtlTTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF OF A BOOK PRESENTED TO 11 EH 
BY THE AUTHOR. 

Beauteous rose-bud, young and gay, 
Blooming in thy early May, 
Never may'st thou, lovely flower, 
Chilly shrink in sleety shower 



burns' poems. 134 



Never Boreas' hoary path, 
Never Eurus' poisonous breath, 
Never baleful stellar lights, 
Taint thee with untimely blights ! 
Never, never reptile thief 
JRiot on thy virgin leaf! 
Nor even Sol too fiercely view 
Thy bosom blushing still with dew ! 

May'st thou long, sweet crimson gem, 
Richly deck thy native stem : 
'Till some evening, sober, calm, 
Dropping dews and breathing balm. 
While all around the woodland rings, 
And every bird thy requiem sings ; 
Thou, amid the dirgeful sound, 
Shed thy dying honours round, 
And resign to parent earth 
The loveliest form she e'er gave birth. 



ADDRESS TO MR WILLIAM TYTLEK. 

Revered defender of beauteous Stuart, Olary. Queen of Scots 

Of Stuart, a name once respected — 
A name which to love was the mark of a true heart, 

■But now 'tis despised and neglected. 

Though something like moisture conglobes in my eye, 

Let no one "misdeem me disloyal ; 
A poor friendless wand'rer may well claim a sigh, 

Still more if that wand'rer were royal. 

My fathers that name have revered on a throne 

My fathers have fallen to right it - 
Those fathers would spurn their rle^atrate son, 

That name should he scoflSngly- slight it. 

Still in prayers for King George I most heartily join. 

The Queen, and the rest of the gentry ; 
Be they wise, be they foolish, is nothing of mine, 

Their title's avowed by my country. 

But why of that epocha make such a fuss, 

That gave us the Hanover stem ; 
If bringing them over was lucky for us, 

I'm sure 'twas as lucky for them. 

But loyalty, truce ! we're on dangerous ground, 

Who knows how the fashions may alter ? 
The doctrine, to-day, that is loyalty sound, 

To-morrow may bring us a halter 1 

I send you a trifle, a head of a bard, 

A trifle scarce worthy your care ; 
But accept it, good sir, as a mark of regard. 

Sincere as a saint's dying prayer» 



'26 BURNS' POEMS. 



Now life's chilly evening dim shades on your eya, 

And ushers the long dreafy night ; 
But you, like the star that athwart gilds the sky, 

Your course to the latest is bright. 



ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF LORD PRESIDENT 
DUNDA.S. 

Lone on the bleaky hills the straying flocks 
Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocl: : 
Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains, 
The gathering floods burst o'er the distant plains ■ 
Beneath the blasts the leafless forests groan ; 
The hollow caves return a sullen moan. 

Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves, 
Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves ! 
Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye, 
Sad to your sympathetic scenes I fly ; 
Where to the whistling blast and waters' roar 
Pale Scotia's recent wound I may deplore. 
Oh heavy loss, thy country ill could bear ! 
A loss these evil days can ne'er repair ! 
Justice, the high vicegerent of her God, 
Her doubtful balance eyed, and swayed her rod ; 
Hearing the tidings of tht fatal blow, 
She sank, abandoned to the wildest wo. 

Wrongs, injuries, from many a darksome den, 
Now gay in hope explore the paths of men : 
See from his cavern grim Oppression rise, 
And throw on Poverty his cruel eyes ; 
Keen on the helpless victim see him fly, 
And stifle, dark, the feebly-bursting cry. 

Mark ruffian Violence, distained with crimes, 

Rousing elate in these degenerate times ; 

View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, 

As guileful Fraud points out the erring way : 

While subtile Litigation's pliant tongue 

The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong : 

Hark, injured Want recounts th' unlistened tale. 

And much-wronged Misery pours th' unpitied wail 

Ye dark waste hills, and brown unsightly plains 
To you I sing my grief-inspired strains: 
Ye tempests, rage! ye turbid torrents, roll! 
Ye suit the joyless tenor of my soul. 
Life's social haunts and pleasures I resign, 
Be nameless wilds and lonely wanderings mine, 
To mourn the woes my country must endure, 
That wound degenerate ages cannot cure. 



BURNS' POEMS. 122 



ELPHINSTONE'S TRANSLATION OF MARTIAL'S 
EPIGRAMS. 

Oh thou, whom poesy abhors ! 
Whom prose has turned out of doors ! 
Heard 'st thou yon groan ? proceed no further 1 
'Twas laurel'd Martial roaring murther ! 



A FAREWELL TO CL A RIND A, 

ON LEAVING EDINBURGH, 

Clarinda, mistress of my soul, 

The measured time is run ! 
The wretch beneath the dreary pole 

So marks his latest sun. 

To what dark cave of frozen night 

Shall poor Sylvander hie ; 
Deprived of thee, his life and light, 

The sun of all his joy ? 

We part — but, by these precious drops 

That fill thy lovely eyes ! 
No other light shall guide my steps 

Till thy bright beams arise. 

She, the fair sun of all her sex, 

Has blest my glorious day ; 
And shall a glimmering planet fix 

My worship to its ray ? 



TO CLARINDA : 

WITH A PRESENT OF A PAIR OF DRINKING-GLASSS3 

Fair Empress of the Poet's soul, 

And Queen of Poetesses ; 
Clarinda, take this little boon, 

This humble pair of glasses. 

And fill them high with generous juice. 

As generous as your mind ; 
And pledge me in the generous toast — 

" The whole of human kind ! " 

" To those who love us ! " — second fill ; 

But not to those whom we lore ; 
Lest we love those who love not us ! — 

A third—" To thee and me, love " 



198 BURNS* POEMS 


EPISTLE TO HUGH PARKER. ■ 




In this strange land, this uncouth clime, 




A land unknown to prose or rhyme; 




Where words ne'er crost the muse's heckles,* 




Nor limpet in poetic shackles ; 


limped 


A land that Prose did never view it, 




Except when drunk he stacher't through it ; 


staggered 


Here, ambush'd by the chimla cheek, 


chimney 


Hid in an atmosphere of reek, 


smoke 


I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk, 


sound, corner 


I hear it— for in vain I leuk. 


look 


The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel, 




Enhusked by a fog internal : 




Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures, 




I sit and count my sins by chapters ; 




For life and spunk like ither Christians, 


spirit, other 


I'm dwindled down to mere existence — 




Wi' nae converse but Gallowa* bodies, 


no 


Wi' nae kenn'd face but Jenny Geddes. known (his mare) 


Jenny, my Pegasean pride ! 




Dowie she saunters down Nithside, 


sad 


And aye a westlin leuk she throws, 


westward look 


While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose ! 


cover 


Was it for this, wi' canny care, 


gentle 


Thou bure the Bard through many a shire ? 


bore 


At howes or hillocks never stumbled, 


hollows 


And late or early never grumbled ? 




Oh, had I power like inclination, 




I'd heeze thee up a constellation, 


raise 


To canter with the Sagitarre, 




Or loup the ecliptic like a bar; 


jump 


Or turn the pole like any arrow ; 




Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow, 




Down the zodiac urge the race, 




And cast dirt on his godship's face ; 




For I could lay my bread and kail 


dinnef 


He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail. 


salt 


Wi' a' this care and a' this grief, 




And sma', sma' prospect of relief, 


small 


And nought but peat-reek i' my head, 


peat smoke 


How can I write what ye can read? 




Torbolton, twenty-fourth o' June, 




Ye'll find me in a better tune ; 




But till we meet and weet our whistle, 


wet, throats 


Tak this excuse for nae epistle. 


nc 


Robert Burns. 


* \n instrument for dressing flax. 





BURNS' POEMS. Ifcfc 



THE FETE CHAMPETRE. 
Tune — Eillicrankie. 

Oh wha will to Saint Stephen's House, win 

To do our errands there, man ? 
Oh wha "will to Saint Stephen's House, 

O' th' merry lads o' Ayr, man ? 
Or will ye send a man-o'-law ? 

Or will ye send a sodger ? 
Or him wha led o'er Scotland a* 

The meikle Ursa-Major ? big j 

Come, will ye court a noble lord, 

Or buy a score o' lairds, man ? 
For worth and honour pawn their word, 

Their vote shall be Glencaird's, man. 
Ane gies them coin, ane gies them wine, one givee 

Anither gies thein clatter ; 
Anbank, wha guessed the ladies' taste, 

He gies a Fete Champetre. 

When Love and Beauty heard the news, 

The gay greenwoods amang, man, among 

Where, gathering flowers and busking bowers, dressing 

They heard the blackbird's sang, man : 
A vow, they seal'd it with a kiss, 

Sir Politics to fetter, 
As theirs alone, the patent-bliss, 

To hold a Fete Champetre. 

Then mounted Mirth, on gleesome wing, 

Ower hill and dale she flew, man ; over 

Ilk whimpling burn, ilk crystal spring, each meandering 

Ilk glen and shaw she knew, man : wood 

She summoned every social sprite, 

That sports by wood and water, 
On th' bonnie banks o' Ayr to meet, 

And keep this Fete Champetre. 

Cauld Boreas, wi' his boisterous crew, 

Were bound to stakes like kye, man ; cows 

And Cynthia's car, o' silver fu', 

Clamb up the starry sky, man : 
Reflected beams dwell in the streams, 

Or down the current shatter ; 
The western breeze steals through the tress 

To view this Fete Champetre. 

How many a robe sae gaily floats ! so 

What sparking jewels glance, man ! 
To Harmony's enchanting notes, 

As moves the mazy dance, man. 
The echoing wood, the winding flood, 

Like Paradise did glitter, 
When angels met, at Adam's yett, gaio 

To hold their Fete Champetre, 



loO BURNS' POEMS. 



When Politics came there, to mix 

And make his ether-stane, man ! adder-stono 

He circled round the magic ground, 

But entrance found he nane, man : none 

He blushed for shame, he quat his name, quitted 

Forswore it, every letter, 
"WT humble prayer to join and share 

This festive Fete Champetre. 



FIRST EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY. 

When Nature her great masterpiece designed. 
And framed her last, best work, the human mind. 
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan, 
She formed of various parts the various man. 

Then first she calls the useful many forth ; 

Plain plodding industry, and sober worth : 

Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth, 

And merchandise' whole genus take their birth : 

Each prudent cit a warm existence finds, 

And all mechanics' many-apron'd kinds. 

Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet, 

The lead and buoy are needful to the net ; 

The caput mortuum of gross desires 

Makes a material for mere knights and squires ; 

The martial phosphorus is taught to flow ; 

She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough, 

Then marks the unyielding mass with grave designs 

Law, physic, politics, and deep divines ; 

Last, she sublimes the Aurora of the poles, 

The flashing elements of female souls. 

The order'd system fair before her stood, 

Nature, well-pleased, pronounced it very good ; 

But e'er she gave creating labour o'er, 

Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more. 

Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter, 

Such as the slightest breath of air might- scatter 

With arch alacrity and conscious glee 

(Nature may have her whim as well as we, 

Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it) 

She forms the thing, and christens it — a poet, 

Creature, though oft the prey of care and sorrow 

When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow. 

A being formed t' amuse his graver friends, 

Admired and praised — and there the homage ends ; 

A mortal quite unfit for fortune's strife, 

Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life ; 

Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give, 

Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live ; 

Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groaii.. 

Yet frequent all unheeded in his own. 



BURNS POEMS. 131 



But honest Nature is not quite a Turk, 

She laughed at first, then felt for her poor work. 

Pitying the propless climber of mankind, 

She cast about a standard tree to find ; 

And, to support his helpless woodbine state, 

Attached him to the generous truly great, 

A title, and the only one I claim, 

To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham. 

Pity the tuneful Muses' hapless train, 

Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main ! 

Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff, 

That never gives — though humbly takes enough ; 

The little fate allows, they share as soon, 

Unlike sage proverb'd wisdom's hard-wrung boon. 

The world were blest did bliss on them depend, 

Ah, that " the friendly e'er should want a friend !" 

Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son, 

Who life and wisdom at one race begun, 

Who feel by reason and who give by rule 

(Instinct's a brute and sentiment a fool !) — 

Who make poor will do wait upon I should — 

We own they're prudent, but who feels they're good ? 

Ye wise ones, hence I ye hurt the social eye ! 

God's image rudely etched on base alloy ! 

But come, ye who the godlike pleasure know, 

Heaven's attribute distinguished — to bestow ! 

Whose arms of love would grasp the human race : 

Come thou who giv'st with all a courtier's grace ; 

Friend of my life, true patron of my rhymes ! 

Prop of my dearest hopes for future times. 

Why shrinks my soul half-blushing, half-afraid, 

Backward, abashed, to ask thy friendly aid ? 

I know my need, I know thy giving hand, 

I crave thy friendship at thy kind command ; 

But there are such who court the tuneful Nine — 

Heavens ! should the branded character be mine ! 

Whose verse in manhood's pride sublimely flow3, 

Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose. 

Mark, how their lofty independent spirit 

Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit ! 

Seek not the proofs in private life to find ; 

Pity the best of words should be but wind ! 

So to heaven's gate the lark's shrill song ascends P 

But grovelling on the earth the carol ends. 

In all the clam'rous cry of starving want, 

They dun benevolence with shameless front ; 

Oblige them, patronise their tinsel lays, 

They persecute you all your future days ! 

Ere my poor soul such condemnation stain, 

My horny fist assume the plough again ; 

The piebald jacket let me patch once more ; 

On eighteenpence a week I've lived before. 

Though, thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift ! 



tS2 



BURNS' POEMS. 



I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift : 

That, placed by thee upon the wished-for height, 

Where, man and nature fairer in her sight, 

My Muse may imp her wing for some sublime flight. 



SECOND EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY. 

Fintry, my stay in worldly strife, 
Friend o my Muse, friend o' my life, 

Are ye as idle's I am ? 
Come then, wi' uncouth, kintra fleg, country fling 

O'er Pegasus I'll fling my leg, 

And ye shall see me try him. 



I'll sing the zeal Drumlanrig bears, 
Who left the all-important cares 

Of princes and their darlings ; 
And, bent on winning borough towns, 
Came shaking hands wi' wabster loons, 

And kissing barefit carlins. 

Combustion through our boroughs rode, 
Whistling his roaring pack abroad, 

Of mad, unmuzzled lions ; 
As Queensberry buff and blue unfurled, 
And Westerha' and Hopetoun hurled 

To every Whig defiance. 

But Queensberry, cautious, left the war, 
The unmannered dust might soil his star, 

Besides, he hated bleeding ; 
But left behind him heroes bright, 
Heroes in Caesarean fight 

Or Ciceronian pleading. 

O for a throat like huge Mons-Meg, 
To muster o'er each ardent Whig 

Beneath Drumlanrig's banner ; 
Heroes and heroines commix 
All in the field of politics, 

To win immortal honours. 

M'Murdo and his lovely spouse 

(Th' enamoured laurels kiss her brows) 

Led on the Loves and Graces ; 
She won each gaping burgess' heart, 
While he, all -conquering, played his part, 

Among their wives and lasses. 

Craigdarroch led a light-armed corps ; 
Tropes, metaphors, and figures pour, 

Like Hecla streaming thunder ; 
Glenriddel, skilled in rusty coins, 
Blew up each Tory's dark designs, 

And bared the treason under. 



(Duke of Queensberry) 



weaver 
barefoot, old women 



(Fox's colours) 



(a large cannon) 



(the chamberlain) 



BUTWTS' POEMS. 



13S 



In either wing two champions fought, 
Redoubted Staig, who set at nought 

The wildest savage Tory, 
And Welsh, who ne'er yet flinched his ground 
High waved his magnum bonum round 

With Cyclopean fury. 

Miller brought up the artillery ranks, 
The many-pounders of the Banks, 

Resistless desolation ; 
While Maxwelton, that baron bold, 
Mid Lawson'3 port entrenched his hold, 

Threatening exteehes'ation. 



(Provost of Dumfries) 



(the Sheriff) 



(of Dalswinton) 



(Sir R Lawrie, M.P.) 



To these, what Tory host3 opposed ; 
With these, what Tory warriors closed, 

Surpasses my descriving : describing 

Squadrons extended long and large, 
With furious speed rushed to the charge, 

Like raging moxstees driving. 

What verse can sing, what prose narrate, 
The butcher deeds of bloody fate 

Amid this mighty tulzie ? conflict 

Grim Horror grinned ; pale Terror roared, 
As Murther at his thrapple shored, throat threatened 

And wild mixed in the brulzie ! broil 

As Highland crags, by thunder cleft, 

When lightnings lire the stormy lift, firmament 

Hurl down wi' crashing rattle ; 
As flames amang a hundred woods ; 
As headlong foam a hundred floods ; 

Such is the rage of battle. 

The stubborn Tories dare to die ; 
As soon the rooted oaks would fly, 

Before th' approaching fellers ; 
The Whigs come on like Ocean's roar, 

When all his wintry billows pour 
Against the Buchan Bullers. 

Lo, from the shades of Death's deep night, 
Departed Whigs enjoy the fight, 

And think on former daring I 
The muffled murtherer of Charles (Charlei L) 

The Magna-Charta flag unfurls, 

All deadly gules its bearing. 

Nor wanting ghosts of Tory fame ; 

Bold Scrimgeour follows gallant G-rahame — 

Auld Covenanters shiver — 
(Forgive, forgive, much-wronged Montrose ! 
While death at last engulfs thy foes, 

Thou liv'st on high for ever 1) 

Still o'er the field the combat burns ; 
The Tories, Whigs, give way by turns; 



(rocks at Peterhead) 



184 BURNS' POEMS. 

But fate the word has spoken — 
For woman's wit, or strength of man, 
Alas ! can do but what they can — 

The Tory ranks are broken. 

O that my een were flowing burns ! eyes, rivuleti 

My voice a lioness that mourns 

Her darling cub's undoing ! 
That I might greet, that I might cry, weep 

While Tories fall, while Tories fly, 

And furious Whigs pursuing ! 

What Whig but wails the good Sir James ; 
Dear to his country by the names 

Friend, Patron, Benefactor ? 
Not Pulteney's wealth can Pulteney save ! 
And Hopetoun falls, the generous, bravo ! 

And Stuart bold as Hector I 

Thou, Pitt, shall rue thi3 overthrow, 
And Thurlow growl a curse of wo, 

And Melville melt in wailing ! 
Now Fox and Sheridan, rejoice! 
And Burke shall sing : " prince, arise ! 

Thy power is all-prevailing I" 

For your poor friend, the Bard afar, 
He hears, and only hears the war, 

A cool spectator purely ; 
So when the storm the forest rends, 
The robin in the hedge descends, 

And sober chirps securely. 



THIRD EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY, 1791, 

Late crippled of an arm, and now a leg, 
About to beg a pass for leave to beg : 
Dull, listless, teased, dejected, and deprest, 
(Nature is adverse to a cripple's rest) ; 
Will generous Graham list to his Poet's wail ? 
(It soothes poor misery, hearkening to her tale), 
And hear him ban the light he first surveyed, 
And doubly ban the luckless rhyming trade ? 

Thou, Nature, partial Nature ! I arraign ; 

Of thy caprice maternal I complain. 

The lion and the bull thy care have found, 

One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground: 

Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell, 

Th' envenomed wasp, victorious, guards his ceil ; 

Thy minions, kings, defend, control, devour, 

In all th' omnipotence of rule and power; 

Foxes and statesmen, subtile wiles insure : 

The cit and polecat stink, and are secure : 



burns' poems. 18ft 



Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug, 

The priest and hedgehog in their robes are snug ; 

Ev'n silly woman has her warlike arts, 

Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and darts; — 

But, oh 1 thou bitter stepmother and hard, 

To thy poor, fenceless, naked child — the Bard 1 

A thing unteachable in world's skill, 

And half an idiot, too, more helpless still : 

No heels to bear him from the opening dun ; 

No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun ; 

No nerves olfactory, Mammon's trusty cur, 

Clad in rich dulness' comfortable fur ; — 

In naked feeling, and in aching pride, 

He bears the unbroken blast from every side : 

Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart, 

And scorpion critics cureless venom dart. 

Critics ! — appalled I venture on the name, 
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame : 
Bloody dissectors, worse that ten Monroes I 
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose. 

His heart by causeless wanton malice wrung, 

By blockheads' daring into madness stung ; 

His well-won bays, than life itself more dear, 

By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear : 

Foiled, bleeding, tortured, in the unequal strife, 

The hapless poet flounders on through life ; 

Till fled each hope that once his bosom fired, 

And fled each muse that glorious once inspired, 

Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age, 

Dead, even resentment, for his injured page, 

He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's rage ! 

So, by some hedge, the generous steed deceased, 
For half-starved snarling curs a dainty feast : 
By toil and famine wore to skin and bone, 
Lies senseless, and theis kavening unknown. 

O dulness ! portion of the truly blest ! 

Calm sheltered haven of eternal rest ! 

Thy sons ne'er madden in the fierce extremes 

Of fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams. 

If mantling high she fills the golden cup, 

With sober selfish ease they sip it up : 

Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve, 

They only wonder " some folks " do not starve. 

The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog, heron 

And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog. Mild drake 

When disappointment snaps the clue of hope, 

And through disastrous night they darkling grope, 

With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear, 

And just conclude that " fools are fortune's care." 

So, heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks, 

Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox. 



136 BURNS* POEMS. 



Not so the idle Muses* mad-cap train, 

Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain. 

I dread thee, fate, relentless and severe, 
With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear ! 
Already one strong hold of hope is lost, 
Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust ; 
(Fled, like the sun eclipsed as noon appears, 
And left us darkling in a world of tears :) 
O hear my ardent, grateful, selfish prayer ! — 
Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare ! 
Through a long life his hopes and wishes crown 
And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down ! 
May bliss domestic smooth his private path, 
Give energy to life, and soothe his latest breath, 
"With many a filial tear circling the bed of death ! 



LAMENTATION 

FOR THE DEATH OF MRS FERGUSSON OF CRAIGDARROCH'S SON 
— AN UNCOMMONLY PROMISING YOUTH OF EIGHTEEN OF 
NINETEEN YEARS OF AGE. 

Fate gave the word, the arrow sped, 

And pierc'd my darling's heart ; 
And with him all the joys are fled 

Life can to me impart. 
By cruel hands the sapling drops, 

In dust dishonour'd laid : 
So fell the pride of all my hopes, 

Xvly age's future shade. 

The mother linnet in the brake 

Bewails her ravish'd young ; 
So I, for my lost darling's sake, 

Lament the live-day long. 
Death ! oft I've feared thy fatal blow, 

Now, fond I bare my breast ; 
Oh, do thou kindly lay me low 

With him I love, at rest ! 



LINES WRITTEN IN FRIARS' CARSE HERMITAGE, 
NITHSIDE. 

Thou whom chance may hither lead, 
Be thou clad in russet weed, 
Be thou deckt in silken stole, 
Grave these counsels on thy soul. 

Life is but a day at most, 
Sprung from night, in darkness lost ; 
Hope not sunshine every hour, 
Fear not clouds will always lower. 



burns' poemc. 131 



As youth and lovo with sprightly dance, 
Beneath thy morning star advance, 
Pleasure with her siren air 
May delude the thoughtless pair ; 
Let Prudence bless Enjoyment's cup, 
Then raptured sip, and sip it up. 

As thy day grows warra and high, 

Life's meridian flaming nigh, 

Dost thou spurn the humble vale ? 

Life's proud summits would'st thou scale ? 

Check thy climbing step, elate, 

Evils lurk in felon wait : 

Dangers eagle-pinioned, bold, 

Soar around each cliffy hold, 

While cheerful Peace, with linnet song, 

Chants the lowly dells among. 

As the shades of ev'ning close, 

Beck'ning thee to long repose ; 

As life itself becomes disease, 

Seek the chimney-nook of ease ; 

There ruminate with sober thought, 

On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought^ 

And teach the sportive younkers round* 

Saws of experience, sage and sound. 

Say, man's true, genuine estimate, 

The grand criterion of his fate, 

Is not — Art thou high or low ? 

Did thy fortune ebb or flow ? 

Did many talents gild thy span ? 
Or frugal Nature grudge thee one ? 
Tell them, and press it on their mind, 
As thou thyself must shortly find, 
The smile or frown of awful Heav'n 
To virtue or to vice is given. 
Say, to be just, and kind, and wise, 
There solid self-enjoyment lies; 
That foolish, selfish, faithless ways 
Lead to be wretched, vile, and base. 

Thus resigned and quiet, creep 

To the bed of lasting sleep ; 

Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake, 

Night, where dawn shall never break, 

Till future life, future no more, 

To light and joy the good restore, 

To light and joy unknown before. 

Stranger, go I Heav'n be thy guide ! 
Quod the Bedesman of Nithside I 



138 



burns' poems. 



ELEGY ON THE YEAR 1788. 



Jan, 1, 1789. 

do not 



twelvemonth, gone 



lost, (Charles III.) 

(his dog) 

fight, sore 



For Lords or Kings I dinna mourn, 
E'en let them die — for that they're born : 
But oh ! prodigious to reflec' I 
A towmont, sirs, is gane to wreck ! 
Oh Eighty-eight, in thy sma' space 
What dire events ha'e taken place ! 
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us ! 
In what a pickle thou hast left us 1 

The Spanish empire's tint a head, 

And my auld teethless Bawtie's dead ; 

The tulzie's sair 'tween Pitt and Fox, 

And our guidwife's wee birdie cocks ; 

Ye ministers, come mount the pu'pit, 

And cry till ye be hearse and roopit, hoarse, croup 

For Eighty-eight he wished you weel, well 

And gied ye a' baith gear and meal; gave, both money 

E'en mony a plack, and mony a peck, many, coin 

Ye ken yoursels, for little feck ! . . . know, consideration 

Observe the very nowte and. sheep, cattle 

How dowf and dowie now they creep : lethargic, dull 

Nay, even the yirth itseP does cry, earth 

For Embro' wells are grutten dry, Edinburgh, wept 

Oh Eighty-nine, thou's but a bairn, 

And no owre auld, I hope, to learn I not too old 

Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care, (Prince Eegent) 

Thou now has got thy daddy's chair, (George III.) 

Nae hand-cuffed, muzzled, hap-shackled Regent foot-tied 

But, like himseP, a full free agent. 

Be sure ye follow out the plan 

Nae waur than he did, honest man ! no worse 

As muckle better as you can. much 



A SKETCH. 

A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight, 
And still his precious self his dear delight ; 
Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets, 
Better than e'er the fairest she he meets. 
A man of fashion too, he made his tour, 
Learned vive la bagatelle, et vive V amour ; 
So travelled-monkeys their grimace improve, 
Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladie's love. 
Much specious lore, but little understood ; 
Veneering oft outshines the solid wood : 
His solid sense — by inches you must tell, 
But mete his cunning by the old Scotch ell 
His meddling vanity, a busy fiend, 
Still making work his selfish craft must mend. 



BURNS' POEMS. 139 



EXTEMPORE TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL, 

ON RETURNING A NEWSPAPER. 

Ellisland, Monday Evening. 

Your news and review, sir, IVe read through and through, sir, 

With little admiring or blaming ; 
The papers are barren of home new3 or foreign, 

No murders at all worth the naming. 

Our friends, the reviewers, those chippers and hewers, 

Are judges of mortar and stone, sir ; 
But of meet or unmeet, in & fabric complete, 

111 boldly pronounce they are none, sir. 

My goose-quill too rude is to tail all your goodness 

Bestowed on your servant the poet ; 
Would I only had one, like a beam of the sun, 

And then all the world, sir, should know it ! 



ODE, 

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MRS OSWALD. 

Dweller in yon dungeon dark, 
Hangman of creation, mark ! 
Who in widow weeds appears, 
Laden with unhonoured years, 
Noosing with care a bursting purse, 
Baited with many a deadly curse ! 

STROPHE. 

View the witnered beldam's face — 

Can thy keen inspection trace 

Aught of Humanity's sweet melting grace ? 

Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows, 

Pity's flood there never rose. 

See these hands, ne'er stretched to save, 

Hands that took— but never gave. 

Keeper of Mammon's iron chest, 

Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest. 



And are they of no more avail, 

Ten thousand glittering pounds a year ? 

In other words, can Mammon fail, 

Omnipotent as he is here ? 

O bitter mockery of the pompous bier, 

While down the wretched vital part is driv'n 1 

The cave-lodged beggar, with a conscience clear, 

Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to heav'n. 



uo burns' poems. 



TO JOHN TAYLOR. 

With Pegasus upon a day, 

Apollo weary flying, 
Through frosty hills the journey lay, 

On foot the way was plying. 

Poor slip-shod giddy Pegasus 
Was but a sorry walker ; 

To Vulcan then Apollo goes, 
To get a frosty calker. 

Obliging Vulcan fell to work, 
Threw by his coat and bonne*, 

And did Sol's business in a crack ; 
Sol paid him with a sonnet. 

Ye Vulcan's sons of Wanlockhead, 

Pity my sad disaster ; 
My Pegasus is poorly shod — 
I'll pay you like my master. 
Ramage's, 3 o'clock 



SKETCH. 

INSCRIBED TO CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

How Wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite ; 
How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white ; 
How Genius, the illustrious father of Fiction, 
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction — 
I sing : if these mortals, the critics, should bustle, 
I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle. 

But now for a Patron, whose name and whose glory 
At once may illustrate and honour my story. 

Thou first of our orators, first of our wits, 
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits ; 
With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong, 
No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong ; 
With passions so potent, and fancies so bright, 
No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right : 
A sorry, poor misbegot son of the Muses, 
For using thy name offers fifty excuses. 

On his one ruling passion Sir Pope hugely labours, 
That, like th' old Hebrew walking switch, eats up its 

neighbours : 
Mankind are his show-box — a friend, would you know him f 
Pull the string, ruling passion the picture will show him. 
What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system, 
One trifling particular, truth, should have miss'd him; 
For, spite of his fine theoretic positions, 
Mankind is a science defies definitions. 



BURNS' POEMS. ill 



Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe, 

And think human nature they truly describe ; 

Have you found this, or t'other 1 there's more in the wind, 

As by one drunken fellow his comrades you'll find. 

But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan, 

In the make of that wonderful creature call'd man, 

No two virtues, whatever relation they claim, 

Nor even two different shades of the same, 

Though like as was ever twin-brother to brother, 

Possessing the one shall imply you've the other. 

But truce with abstraction and truce with the Muse, 
"Whose rhymes you'll perhaps, sir, ne'er deign to peruse : 
"Will you leave your justings, your jars, and your quarrels, 
Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels. (Pitt) 

My much-honoured Patron, believe your poor Poet, 
Your courage much more than your prudence you shew it : 
In vain with Squire Billy for laurels you struggle, 
He'll have them by fair trade, if not he will smuggle ; 
Not cabinets even of kings would conceal 'em, 
He'd up the back-stairs and be certain to steal 'em ! 
Then feats like Squire Billy's you ne'er can achieve 'em, 
It is not, outdo him — the task is, out-thieve him ! 



DELIA. 

Fair the face of orient day, 
Fair the tints of op'ning rose ; 

But fairer still my Delia dawns, 
More lovely far her beauty shews. 

Sweet the lark's wild warbled lay, 
Sweet the tinkling rill to hear ; 

But, Delia, more delightful still, 
Steal thine accents on mine ear. 

The flower-enamoured busy bee 
The rosy banquet loves to sip ; 

Sweet the streamlet's limpid lapse 
To the sun-browned Arab's lip. 

But, Delia, on thy balmy lips 
Let me, no fragrant insect, rove ; 

let me steal one liquid kiss, 
For, oh ! my soul is parched with love I 



ON SEEING A W T OUNDED HARE LIMP BY ME, 

WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT. 

Inhuman man ! curse on thy barb'rous art, 
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye ; 
May never pity soothe thee with a 'sigh, 

Nor ev ar pleasure glad thy cruel heart J 



142 



BURNS* POEMS. 



Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field 1 
The bitter little that of life remains : 
No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains 

To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield. 

Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rc3t, 
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed ! 
The sheltering rushoa whistling o'er thy head, 

The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest. 

Oft as by winding Nith I, musing, wait 
The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn, 
I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn, 

And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless fate. 



LETTER TO JAMES TENNANT OF GLENCONNER. 



Auld comrade dear, and brither sinner, 

How's a' the folk about Glenconner ? 

How do you, this blae eastlin wind, 

That's like to blaw a body blind ? 

For me, my faculties are frozen, 

And ilka member nearly dozen'd. 

I've sent you here, by Johnnie Simpson, 

Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on ; 

Smith, wi' his sympathetic feeling, 

And Reid, to common-sense appealing. 

Philosophers have fought and wrangled, 

And meikle Greek and Latin mangled, 

Till, wi' their logic jargon tir'd, 

And in the depths of science inir'd, 

To common-sense they now appeal, 

What wives and wabsters see and feel. 

But, hark ye, friend ! I charge you strictly, 

Peruse them, and return them quickly, 

For now I'm grown sae veea douce, 

I pray and ponder butt the house ; 

My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin', 

Perusing Bunyan, Erown, and Boston ; 

Till, by and by, if I haud on, 

I'll grunt a real gospel groan : 

Already I begin to try it, 

To cast my e'en up like a pyet 

When by the gun she tumbles o'er, 

Flutt'ring and gasping in her gore : 

Sae shortly you shall see me bright, 

A burning and a shining light. 

My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen, 
The ace and wale o' honest men : 
When bending down wi' auld grey hairs, 
Beneath the load of years and cares, 
May He who made him still support him, 
And views beyond the grave comfort him : 



old, brothei 

chilly eastern 
blow 

each, stupified 



much 



veiy quiet 
inside 
alone 

hold 



magpie 



choice 



BURNS' POEMS. 148 



His worthy fam'ly far and near, 

God bless them a' wi' grace and gear ! wealth 

My auld schoolfellow, preacher Willie, 

The manly tar, my mason Billie, 

And Auchinbay, I wish him joy , 

If he's a parent — lass, or boy — 

May he be dad, and Meg the mither, father 

Just five-and-forty years thegither ! 

And no forgetting wabster Charlie, 

I'm told he offers very fairly. 

And aye remember singing Sannock, 

Wi* hal e breeks, saxpence, and a bannock ; cake 

And next my auld acquaintance Nancy, 

Since she is fitted to her fancy ; 

And her kind stars hae airted till her directed to 

A good chiel wi' a pickle siller. fellow, some money 

My kindest, best respects I sen' it, 

To cousin Kate, and sister Janet ; 

Tell them, frae me, wi' chiels be cautious, lads 

For, faith, they'll aiblins fin them fashious. possibly 

And lastly, Jamie, for yoursel', [troublesome 

vfc ?F ^F vfc * 

May ye get mony a merry story ; 

Mony a laugh, and mony a drink, many 

And aye eneugh o' needfu' clink. money 

Now fare-you-weel, and joy be wi* you ; 

For my sake this I beg it o' you, 

Assist poor Simson a' ye can, 

Yell fin' him just an honest man : 

Sae I conclude, and quat my chanter, . quit, pipes 

Yours, saint or sinner, rob the ranter. 



ADDRESS TO THE TOOTHACHE. 

My ban upon thy venom'd stang, sting 

That shoots my tortur'd gums alang ; along 

And through my lugs gies mony a twang, ears, gives 

Wi' gnawing vengeance ; 
Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang, 

Like racking engines ! 

When fevers burn, or ague freezes, 
Rheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes ; 
Our neighbour's sympathy may ease us, 

Wi' pitying moan ; 
But thee — thou worst o' a' diseases, 

Aye mocks our groan ! 

O' a' the num'rous human dools, sorrows 

111 har'sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools, harvests, foolish 

Or worthy friends rak'd i» the mools, clods 
Sad sight to see ! 



144 



BURNS' poems. 



The triCKS o' knaves, or fash o' fools — - 
Thou bear'st the gree, 

O thou grim mischief-making chiel, 
That gars the notes of discord squeel, 
Till daft mankind aft dance a reei 

In gore a shoe-thick ! — 
Gie a the faes o' Scotland's weal 

A towmond's toothache ! 



trouble 

superiority 

fellow 
makes 



give, foes, welfare 
year's 



THE KIRK'S ALARM. 

Orthodox, orthodox, 

Wha believe in John Knox, 
Let me sound an alarm to your conscience ; 

There's a heretic blast 

Has been blawn in the wast, 
That what is not sense must be nonsense. 

Dr Mac, Dr Mac, 

You should stretch on a rack, 
To strike evil doers wi' terror ; 

To join faith and sense 

Upon any pretence 
Is heretio hoeeible error. 

Town of Ayr, town of Ayr, 

It was mad, I declare, 
To meddle wi' mischief a-brewing ; 

Provost John is still deaf 

To the church's relief, 
And orator Bob is its ruin. 



who 
blown 



(Rey. Dr M'Gffl) 



Singet Sawney, Singet Sawney, 

Are ye huirding the penny, 
Unconscious what evils await ; 

Wi' a jump, yell, and howl, 

Alarm every soul, 
For the foul thief is just at your gate. 

Daddy Auld, Daddy Auld, 
There's a tod in the fauld, 

A tod meikle waur than the clerk ; 
Though ye downa do skaith, 
Ye'll be in at the death, 

And if ye canna bite, ye may bark. 

Davie Bluster, Davie Bluster, 
For a saint if ye muster. 

The corps is no nice of recruits ; 
Yet to worth lets be just, 
Royal blood ye might boast, 

If the ass was the king of the brutes. 

Jamy Goose, Jamy Goose, 
Ye hae made but toom roose, 



(Robert Aiken) 

(Rev. Alex. Moodie) 
hoarding 



(Rev. Mr Auld) 

fox, fold 

much worse 

cannot harra 



(Mr Grant, Ochiltree) 



(Mr Young, Cumnock) 
empty praise 

J 



burns' poems. 


U5 


In bunting the wicked lieutenant ; 




But the Doctor's your mark, 




For the Kirk's haly ark, 


holy 


He has cooper'd and cawt a wrong pin in't 


driven 


Andro Gouk, Andro Gouk, (Rev. Dr Mitchell, Monkton) 


Ye may slander the book, 




And the book not the waur, let me tell ye ; 


worse 


Ye are rich, and look big, 




But lay by hat and wig, 




And ye'll hae a calf's head o' sma' value. 




Barr Steenie, Barr Steenie, (Rev. Mr Young, Barr) 


What mean ye — what mean ye ? 




If ye'll meddle nae mair wi' the matter, 


more 


Ye may hae some pretence 




To havins and sense, 


manners 


Wi' people wha ken ye nae better. 


know, no 


Irvine-side, Irvine-side, (Rev. 


Mi Smith, Galston) 


Wi* your turkey-cock pride, 




Of manhood but sma' is your share ; 




Ye've the figure, 'tis true, 




Even your faes will allow, 


foes 


And your friends they dare grant you nae mair. more 


Muirland Jock, Muirland Jock, 


(Rev. Mr Shepherd, 


Whom his peide made a rock 


[Muirkirk) 


To crush Common Sense for her sin3, 




If ill manners were wit, 




There's no mortal so fit 




To confound the poor Doctor at ance. 


once 


Holy Will, Holy Will, 




There was wit i' your skull, 




"When ye pilfered the alms o' tb.6 poor ; 




The timmer is scant, 


timbef 


When ye're ta'en for a saunt, 


saint 


Wha should swing in a rape for an hour. 


rope 


Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons, 




Seize your spir'tual guns, 




Ammunition you never can need ; 




Your hearts are the stuff, 




Will be powther enough, 


powder 


And your skulls are storehouses o' lead. 




Poet Burns, Poet Burns, 




Wi' your priest-skelping turns, 




Why desert ye your auld native shire ? 




Though your Muse is a gipsy, 




Yet were she e'en tipsy, 




She could ca' us nao waur than we are. 


call, worse 



1«« BURNS' POEMS. 



THE WHISTLE. 

I sing of a whistle, a whistle of worth, 

I sing of a whistle, the pride of the North, 

"Was brought to the court of our good Scottish king, 

And long with this whistle all Scotland shall ring. 

Old Loda, still rueing the arm of Fingal, (see Ossiais; 

The god of the bottle sends down from his hall — 
" This whistle's your challenge — to Scotland get o'er, 
And drink them dead drunk, sir ! or ne'er see me more I" 

Old poets have sung, and old chronicles tell, 
What champions ventured, what champions fell ; 
The son of great Loda was conqueror still, 
And blew on the whistle his requiem shrill. 

Till Robert, the lord of the Cairn and the Skarr, 
Unmatched at the bottle, unconquered in war, 
He drank his poor godship as deep as the sea — 
No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he. 

Thus Robert, victorious, the trophy has gained, 
Which now in his house has for ages remained ; 
Till three noble chieftains, and all of his blood, 
The jovial contest again have renewed. 

Three joyous good fellows, with hearts clear of flaw : 
Craigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth, and law; 
And trusty Glenriddel, so skilled in old coins ; 
And gallant Sir Robert, deep-read in old wines. 

Craigdarroch began, with a tongue smooth as oil, 
Desiring Glenriddel to yield up the spoil ; 
Or else he would muster the heads of the clan, 
And once more, in claret, try which was the man. 

" By the gods of the ancients 1" Glenriddel replies, 
" Before I surrender so glorious a prize, 
I'll conjure the ghost of the great Rorie More, 
And bumper his horn with him twenty times o'er." 

Sir Robert, a soldier, no speech would pretend, 
But he ne'er turned his back on his foe — or his friend, 
Said, Toss down the whistle, the prize of the field, 
And knee-deep in claret, he'd die, or he'd yield. 

To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair, 

So noted for drowning of sorrow and care ; 

But for wine and for welcome not more known to fame 

Than the sense, wit, and taste of a sweet lovely dame. 

A bard was selected to witness the fray, 
And tell future ages the feats of the day ; 
A bard who detested all sadness and spleen, 
And wished that Parnassus a vineyard had been. 



burns' poems. Wi 



The dinner being over, the claret they ply, 

And every new cork is a new spring of joy ; 

In the bands of old friendship and kindred so set, 

And the bands grew the tighter the more they were wet. 

Gay Pleasure ran riot as bumpers ran o'er ; 
Bright Phoebus ne'er witnessed so joyous a core, 
And vowed that to leave them he was quite forlorn, 
Till Cynthia hinted he'd see them next morn. 

Six bottles a piece had well wore out the night, 
When gallant Sir Robert, to finish the fight, 
Turn'd o'er in one bumper a bottle of red, 
And swore 'twas the way that their ancestors did. 

Then worthy Glenriddel, so cautious and sage, 
No longer the warfare, ungodly, would wage ; 
A high ruling elder to wallow in wine ! 
He left the foul business to folks less divine. 

The gallant Sir Robert fought hard to the end ; 
But who can with fate and quart-bumpers contend ? 
Though fate said — a hero shall perish in light ; 
So up rose bright Phoebus — and down fell the knight. 

Next up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink : — 
" Craigdarroch, thou'lt soar when creation shall sink ; 
But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyme, 
Come — one bottle more— and have at the sublime ! 

" Thy line, that have struggled for freedom with Bruce, 

Shall heroes and patriots ever produce : 

So thine be the laurel, and mine be the bay ; 

The field thou hast won, by yon bright god of day 1" 



TO MARY IN HEAVEN. 

Thou ling'ring star, with lessening ray, 

That lov'st to greet the early morn, 
Again thou usher'st in the day 

My Mary from my soul was torn, 
Maryl dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast I 

That sacred hour can I forget, 

Can I forget the hallowed grove, 
Where by the winding Ayr we met, 

To live one day of parting love ! 
Eternity will not efface 

Those records dear of transports past ; 
Thy image at our last embrace, 

Ah 1 little thought we 'twas our last ! 



148 BURNS' POEMS. 



Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore, 

O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green ; 
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, 

Twined am'rous round the raptured scene ; 
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, 

The birds sang love on every spray — 
Till too, too soon, the glowing west 

Proclaim'd the speed of winged day. 

Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, 

And fondly broods with miser care ! 
Time but th' impression stronger makes, 

As streams their channels deeper wear. 
My Mary ! dear departed shade 1 

Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 



TO DR BLACKLOCK. 

ELLISLAND, Oct. 21, 1789. 

Wow, but your letter made me vauntie ! elated 

And are ye hale, and weel, and cantie ? well, merry 

I kenned it still your wee bit j auntie, knew, short, jaunt 

Wad bring ye to : would 
Come you aye back as weeFs I want ye, 

And then yell do. 

But what d'ye think, my trusty fier, companion 

Vm turned a gauger— Peace be here 1 exciseman 

Parnassian queans, I fear, I fear, 

Yell now disdain me 1 
And then my fifty pounds a year 

Will little gain me. 

Ye glaiket, gleesome, dainty damies, giddy, dames 

Wha, by Castalia's wimplin' streamie3, winding 

Loup, sing, and lave your pretty limbies, leap 

Ye ken, ye ken, know 
That Strang necessity supreme is 

'Mang sons 'o men. 

I hae a wife and twa wee laddies, have, two, hoys 

They maun hae brose and brats o' duddies ; must, food, clothes 
Ye ken yourseis my heart right proud is — 

I need na vaunt, not 

But 111 sned besoms — thraw saugh woodies,* cut 

Before they want. 

Oh help me through this warld o* care ! 

I'm weary sick o't late and air ! early 

Kot but I hae a richer share have 

Than mony ithers ; many others 

* Twist willow wands. 



burns' poems. 


149 


But why should ae man better fare. 


one 


And a' men brithers ? 


brothers 


Come, firm Resolve, take thou the van, 




Thou stalk o' carl-hemp in man 1 


seed-hemp 


And let us mind, faint heart ne'er wan 


won 


A lady fair : 




"Wha does the utmost that he can, 


who 


Will whyles clo in air. 


sometimes, more 


But to conclude my silly rhyme 




(I'm scant o' verse, and scant o' time), 




To make a happy fireside clime 




To weans and wife, 


children 


That's the true pathos and sublime 




Of human life. 




My compliments to sister Beckie ; 




And eke the same to honest Lucky, 


also 


I wat she is a dainty chuckie, 


know, chick 


As e'er tread clay ! 




And gratefully, my guid auld cockie, 




I'm yours for aye. 




Robert Burns. 




ON CAPTAIN GROSE'S PEREGDSFATIONS 


THROUGH 


SCOTLAND, 




COLLECTING THE ANTIQUITIES OF THAT KINGDOM. 


Here, land o' Cakes, and brither Scots, 


brother 


Frae Maidenkirk* to Johnny Groat's ; 




If there's a hole in a' your coats, 




I rede you tent it : 


warn, observe 


A chiel's amang you taking notes, 


fellow, among 


And, faith, he'll prent it. 


print 


If in your bounds ye chance to light 




Upon a fine, fat, fodgel wight 


plump fellow 


0' stature short, but genius bright, 




That's he, mark weel — 


well 


And wow ! he has an unco slight 


great cleverness 


0' cauk and keel. 


chalk, red crayon 


By some auld houlet-haunted biggin, 


owl, braiding 


Or kirk deserted by its riggin, 


roof 


Its ten to ane you'll find him snug in 


one 


Some eldritch part, 


fearful 


Wi" TTarlocks, sp'kites, asd liips colleaguin' 




At some black art. 




Ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha' or chaumer, each ghost,charnber 


Ye gipsy-gang that deal in glamour, 


necromancy 


» An inversion of the name of Kirkmaiden, in Wigtonshire, 


the most Gcutherlg 


parish in Scotland. John 0' Groats is the most northerly dwel 


.ing in Scotland. 



150 



BURNS POEMS. 



And you deep-read in a' black grammar, 
Warlocks and witches ; 

Ye'll quake at his conjuring hammer, 
Ye midnight wretches. 



It's tauld he was a sodger bred, 
And ane wad rather fa'n than fled ; 
But now he's quat the spurtle blade, 

And dog-skin wallet, 
And ta'en the — Antiquarian trade, 

I think they call it. 

He has a fouth o' auld nick-nackets, 
Rusty aim caps and jinglin' jackets, 
Wad haud the Lothians three in tackets. 

A towmont guid ; 
And parritch-pats, and auld saut-backets 

Before the Flood. 

Forbye, hell shape you aff, fu' gleg, 
The cut of Adam's philabeg ; 
The knife that nicket Abel's craig, 

He'll prove you fully, 
It was a faulding jocteleg, 

Or lang-kail gully. 

But wad ye see him in his glee, 
For meikle glee and fun has he, 
Then set him down, and twa or three 

Guid fellows wi' him ; 
And port, port ! shine thou a wee, 

And then ye'll see him ! 

Now, by the powers o' verse and prose ! 
Thou art a dainty chiel, O Grose I — 
Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose, 

They sair misca' thee , 
I*d take the rascal by the nose, 

Wad say, shame fa' thee. 



wizards 



told, soldier 
one, would, fallen 
quitted, thin sword 



abundance, old 
iron 

keep, shoe-nails 

twelvemonth full 

porridge-pot, 

[salt-box 

besides, off quickly 
dress 
neck 

clasp-knife 
large knife 

would 
much 

good 
little 



fellow 

much asperse 

would 



THE FIVE CARLINES. 

There were five carlines in the south, old women 

They fell upon a scheme, 
To send a lad to Lon'on town, 

To bring them tidings hame. home 

Nor only bring them tidings hame, 

But do their errands there, 
And aiblins gowd and honour baith possibly, gold, both 

Might be that laddie's share. 

There was Maggy by the banks o' Nith, 

A dame wi' pride eneugh, enough 

And Marjory o' the Mony Lochs, 

A carline auld and teugh. woman, tough 



burns' poems. 



151 



And Blinkin' Bess o' Annandale, 
That dwelt near Solwayside, 

And Whisky Jean, that took her gill, 
In Galloway sae wide. 

And Black Joan frae Crichton Peel, 

O' gipsy kith and kin- 
Five wighter carlines werna foun* 

The south contra within. 

To send a lad to Lon'on town, 

They met upon a day, 
And mony a knight and mony a laird 

Their errand fain would gae. 

O mony a knight and mony a laird 
This errand fain would gae ; 

But nae ane could their fancy please, 
ne'er a ane but twae. 

The first he was a belted knight, 

Bred o' a Border clan, 
And he wad gae to Lon'on town, 

Might' nae man him withstan'. 

And he wad do their errands weel, 

And meikle he wad say, 
And ilka ane at Lon'on court, 

Would bid to him guid-day. 

Then next came in a sodger youth, 

And spak wi' modest grace, 
And he wad gae to Lon'on town, 

If sae their pleasure was. 

He wadna hecht them courtly gifts, 

Nor meikle speech pretend, 
But he wad hecht an honest heart 

Wad ne'er desert a friend. 

Now, wham to choose, and wham refuse, 

At strife thir carlines fell ; 
For some had gentle folks to please, 

And some wad please themsel. 

Then out spak mim-mou'ed Meg o' Nith, 

And she spak up wi' pride, 
And she wad send the sodger youth, 

Whatever might betide. 

For the auld guidman o' Lon'on court 

She didna care a pin ; 
But she wad send the sodger youth 

To greet Ms eldest son. 

Then up sprang Bess o' Annandale, 
And a deadly aith she's ta'en, 

That she wad vote the Border knight, 
Though she should vote her lane. 



from 

handsomer, were not 
country 



many 
go 



no one 
two 

(Sir James Johnston) 



well 

much, would 

each one 

good-day 

(Captain Miller) 



wouldn't promise 



would 



whom 
these 



prim-mouthed 



(The King) 



(Prince of Wales) 



oath 



alone 



159 BURNS* POEMS. 



For far-aff fowls hae feathers fair, have 

And fools o' change are fain ; 
But I hae tried the Border knight, 

And I'll try him yet again. 

Says Black Joan frae Crichton Peel, 

A carline stoor and grim, austere 

The auld guidman, and the young guidman, 

For me may sink or swim ; 

For fools will freit o' right or wrang, talk superstitiously 

While knaves laugh them to scorn ; 
But the sodger's friends hae blawn the best, blown 

So he shall bear the horn. 

Then Whisky Jean spak owre her drink, over 

Ye weel ken, kimmers a', -well know, gossipfl 

The auld guidman o' Lon'on court 

His back's been at the wa' ; wall 

And mony a friend that kiss'd his cup 

Is now a f rem it wight : estranged 

But it's ne'er be said o' Whisky Jean — 

I'll send the Border knight. 

Then slow raise Marjory o' the Loch's, arose 

And wrinkled was her brow, 
Her ancient weed was russest gray, 

Her auld Scots bluid was true ; blco£ 

There's some great folks set light by me— 

I set as light by them ; 
But I will send to Lon'on town 

Wham I like best at hame. whom 

Sae how this weighty plea may end sc 

Nae mortal wight can tell : no 

Grant that the king and ilka man every 

May look weel to himsel. well 



SKETCH— NEW-YEAR'S DAY, 1790. 

TO MRS DUN LOP. 

This day, Time winds th' exhausted chain. 
To run the twelvemonth's length again : 
I see the old, bald-pated fellow, 
With ardent eyes, complexion sallow, 
Adjust the unimpaired machine, 
To wheel the equal, dull routine. 

The absent lover, minor heir, 
In vain assail him with their prayer ; 
Deaf as my friend, he sees them press, 
Nor makes the hour one moment less. 
Will you (the Major's with the hounds 
The happy tenants share his rounds ; 



BURNS' POEMS. 15B 



Coila's fair Rachel's care to-day, 

And bio oming Keith's engaged with Gray) 

From housewife cares a minute borrow — 

— That grandchild's cap will do to-morrow — 

And join with me a-moralising, 

This day's propitious to be wise in. 

First, what did yesternight deliver ? 

" Another year is gone for ever." 

And what is this day's strong suggestion ? 

rt The passing moment's all we rest on ! " 

Rest on — for what ? what do we here ? 

Or why regard the passing year ? 

Will time, amused with proverbed lore, 

Add to our date one minute more ? 

A few days may — a few years must — 

Repose us in the silent dust. 

Then is it wise to damp our bliss ? 

Yes — all such reasonings are amiss ! 

The voice of Nature loudly cries, 

And many a message from the skies, 

That something in us never dies : 

That on this frail, uncertain state, 

Hang matters of eternal weight : 

That future life in worlds unknown 

Must take its hue from this alone ; 

AVhether as heavenly glory bright, 

Or dark as misery's woeful night. 

Since, then, my honoured, first of friends, 

On this poor being all depends, 

Let us th' important now employ, 

And live as those who never die. 

Though you, with days and honours crowned, 

Witness that filial circle round 

(A sight, life's sorrows to repulse, 

A sight, pale envy to convulse), 

Others now claim your chief regard ; 

Yourself, you wait your bright reward. 



PROLOGUE, 

SPOKEN AT THE THEATRE, DUMFRIES, ON NEW-YEAR's-DAT 
EVENING, 1790. 

No song nor dance I bring from yon great city 

That queens it o'er our taste — the more's the pity 

Though, by the by, abroad why will you roam ? 

Good sense and taste are natives here at home : 

But not for panegyric I appear, 

I come to wish you all a good new-year ! 

Old Father Time deputes me here before ye, 

Not for to preach, but tell his simple story : 

The sage grave ancient coughed, and bade me say 

* You're one year older this important day." 



m BURKS' POEMS. 



If wiser, too — he hinted some suggestion, 

But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the question ; 

And with a would-be roguish leer and wink, 

He bade me on you press this one word—" think ! * 

Ye sprightly youths, quite flushed with hope and spirit, 

Who think to storm the world by dint of merit, 

To you the dotard has a deal to say, 

In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way : 

He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle, 

That the first blow is ever half the battle ; 

That though some by the skirt may try to snatch him, 

Yet by the forelock is the hold to catch him ; 

That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing, 

You may do miracles by persevering. 

Last, though not least in love, ye youthful fair, 
Angelic forms, high Heaven's peculiar care ! 
To you old Bald-pate smooths his wrinkled brow, 
And humbly begs you'll mind the important now ! 
To crown your happiness he asks your leave, 
And offers bliss to give and to receive. 

For our sincere, though haply weak endeavours, 
"With grateful pride we own your many favours ; 
And howsoe'er our tongues may ill reveal it, 
Believe our glowing bosoms truly feel it. 



PROLOGUE FOR MR SUTHERLAND'S BENEFIT 
NIGHT, DUMFRIES. 

"What need's this din about the town o' Lon'on, 

How this new play and that new sang is comin' ? sonp 

"Why is outlandish stuff sae meikle courted ? so much 

Does nonsense mend like whisky, when imported ? 

Is there nae poet, burning keen for fame, no 

Will try to gie us songs and plays at hame ? give, heme 

For comedy abroad he needna toil, need not 

A fool and knave are plants of every soil ; 

Nor need he hunt as far as Rome and Greece 

To gather matter for a serious piece ; 

There's themes enough in Caledonian story, 

Would show the tragic Muse in a' her glory. 

Is there no daring bard will rise, and tell 
How glorious Wallace stood, how hapless fell ? 
Where are the Muses fled that could produce 
A drama worthy o' the name o' Bruce ; 
Now here, even here, he first unsheathed the sword 
Gainst mighty England and her guilty lord ; 
And after mony a bloody, deathless doing, many 

Wrenched his dear country from the jaws of ruin ? 
O for a Shakspeare or an Otway scene, 
To draw the lovely, hapless Scottish Queen ! 



BURNS' POEMS. 15* 

Vain all the omnipotence of female charms 
'Gainst headlong, ruthless, mad rebellion's arms. 
She fell, but fell with spirit truly Roman, 
To glut the vengeance of a rival woman : 
A woman — though the phrase may seem uncivil — 
As able and as cruel as the devil ! 
One Douglas lives in Home's immortal page, 
But Douglasses were heroes every age : 
And though your fathers, prodigal of life, 
A Douglas followed to the martial strife, 
Perhaps if bowl's row right, and Right succeed;, 
Ye yet may follow where a Douglas leads ! 
As ye hae generous done, if a' the land hare 
Would take the Muses' servants by the hand ; 
Not only hear, but patronise, befriend them, 
And where ye justly can commend, commend them ; 
And aiblins when they winna stand the test, perhaps, wont 
Wink hard, and say the folks hae done their best ! 
Would a' the land do this, then I'll be caution 
Ye'll soon hae poets o' the Scottish nation, 
Will gar Fame blaw until her trumpet crack. make, blow 
And warsle Time, and lay him on his back ! strive with 
For us and for our stage should ony spier, any ask 
" Wha's aught thae chiels maks a' this bustle here ?" who are, 
My best leg foremost, I'll set up my brow, [fellows 
We have the honour to belong to you ! 
We're your ain bairns, e'en guide us as you like, 
But like gude mithers, shore before you strike. mothers, 
And gratefV still I hope ye'll ever find us, [threaten 
For a' the patronage and meikle kindness much 
We've got frae a' professions, sets, and ranks : from 
We've nocht to gie ! we're poor — jq'sq get but thanks, nothing, 
[gi^e 

PEG NICHOLSON. 

Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, 

As ever trod on aim ; ;, 'on 

But now she's floating down the Nith, 

And past the mouth o' Cairn, 

Peg Nicholson wa3 a good bay mare, 

And rode through thick and thin ; 
But now she's floating down the Xith, 

And wanting even the skin. 

Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, 

And ance she bore a priest ; once 

But now she's floating down the Nith, 

For Solway fish a feast. 

Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, 

And the priest he rode her sair ; sore 

And much oppressed and bruised she was, 

As priest-rid cattle are. 



Ufi 



BURNS' POEMS. 



WRITTEN 

TO A GENTLEMAN WHO HAD SENT THE POET A NEWSPAPER, 
AND OFFERED TO CONTINUE IT FREE OF EXPENSE. 



Kind Sir, I've read your paper through, 
And, faith, to me 'twas really new ! 
How guessed ye, sir, what rnaist T wanted ? 
This mony a day I've graned and gaunted, 
To ken what French mischief was brewin', 
Or what the drumlie Dutch were doin' ; 
Or how the collieshangie works 
Atween the Russians and the Turks ; 
Or if the Swede, before he halt, 
Would play anither Charles the Twalt : 
If Denmark, anybody spak o't ; 
Or Poland, wha had now the tack o't ; 
If Spaniard, Portuguese, or Swiss, 
Were sayin' or takin' aught amiss : 
Or how our merry lads at hame, 
In Britian's court kept up the game : 
How Royal George, and them akotjnd him, 
W r as managing St Stephen's quorum ; 
If sleekit Chatham Will was livin', 
Or glaikit Charlie got his nieve in ; 
How Daddie Burke the plea was cooking 
If Warren Hasting's neck was yeukin' ; 
A' this and mair I never heard of, 
And but for you I might despaired of. 
So gratefu', back your news 1 send you, 
And pray, a' guid things may attend you ! 

Ellisland, Monday morning, 1790. 



most 

groan, yawned 

know 

muddy 

contention 

(GustavusIIL) 
twelfth 

lease 



home 



smooth 
thoughtless, fist 



uneasy 



good 



ON CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON. 

M Should the poor be flattered?"— Shakspeare. 

But now his radiant course is run, 

For Matthews course was bright : 
His soul was like the. glorious sun, 

A matchless, heavenly light ! 



He's gane ! he's gane ! he's frae us torn, 

The ae best fellow e'er was born ! 

Thee, Matthew, Nature's sel' shall mourn 

By wood and wild, 
Where, haply, Pity strays forlorn, 

Frae man exiled I 

Ye hills ! near neibors o' the starns, 
That proudly cock your cresting cairns ! 
Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns, 

Where echo slumbers ! 
Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns, 

My wailing numbers ! 



gone, from 
one 
«elf 



ne'glibours/stavs 

eagles 

cb/Mren 



BURNS POEMS. 



157 



Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens ! each, wood-pigeon knows 
Ye hazelly shaws and briery dens ! hollows, dingles 

Ye burnies, wimplin'down your glens, meandering 

Wi' toddlin' din, purling 

Or foaming Strang, wi' hasty stens, strong, leaps 

Frae lin to lin ! cascade 



Mourn, little harebells o'er the lea ; 
Ye stately foxgloves fair to see ; 
Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie, 

In scented bowers ; 
Ye roses on your thorny tree, 

TJie first o' flowers. 

At dawn, when every grassy blade 
Droops with a diamond at its head, 
At even, when beans their fragrance shed, 

I' th' rustling gale, 
Ye maukins whiddin through the glade, 

Come join my wail. 

Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood ; 
Ye grouse that crap the heather bud ; 
Ye curlews calling through a clud ; 

Ye whistling plover ; 
And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood ! — 

He's gane for ever ! 

Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals, 
Ye fisher herons, watching eels ; 
Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels 

Circling the lake ; 
Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels, 

Rair for his sake. 

Mourn, clam'ring craiks at close o' day, 
'Mang fields o' flowering clover gay ; 
And when ye wing your annual way 

Frae our cauld shore, 
Tell thae far warlds, *wha lies in clay 

Y, r ham we deplore. 

Ye houlets, frae your ivy bower, 
In some auld tree or eldritch tower, 
What time the moon, wi' silent glower 

Sets up her horn, 
Wail through the dreary midnight hour 

Till waukrife morn 

O rivers, for ests, hills, and plains ! 
Oft have ye heard my canty strains : 
But now, what else for me remains 

But tales of wo? 
And frae my een the drapping rains 

Maun ever flow. 

Mourn, Spring, thou darling of the year ! 
Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear : 



hares, scudding 



crop 
cloud 

partridge 



roar 
land-rails 



cold 

these, worlds, who 

whom 



OTVjS 

dismal 
stare 



wakeful 
cheerful 



eyes 

must 



each,catcb 



158 BURNS' POEMS. 



Thou, Simmer, while each corny spear summer 

Shoots up its head, 
Thy gay, green, flowery tresses shear 

For him that's dead. 

Thou, Autumn, wi' thy yellow hair, 
In grief thy sallow mantle tear I 
Thou, Winter, hurling through the air 

The roaring blast, 
Wide o'er the naked world declare 

The worth we've lost ! 

Mourn him, thou Sun, great source of light 

Mourn, empress of the silent night ! 

And you, ye twinkling starnies bright, stars 

My Matthew mourn ! 
For through your orbs he's ta'en his flight, 

Ne'er to return. 

O Henderson 1 the man — the brother ! 
And art thou gone, and gone for ever ? 
And hast thou crossed that unknown river, 

Life's dreary bound ? 
Like thee, where shall I find another, 

The world around ? 

Go to your sculptured tombs ye great, 
In a* the tinsel trash o' state ! 
But by thy honest turf I'll wait, 

Thou man of worth i 
And weep the ae best fellow's fat© cue 

E're lay in earth. 

THE EPITAPH. 

Stop, passenger ! my story's brief, 

And truth I shall relate, man ; 
I tell nae common tale o' grief — no 

For Matthew was a great man. 

If thou uncommon merit hast, 

Yet spurned at Fortune's door, man,, 
A look of pity hither cast — " 

For Matthew was a poor man. 

If thou a noble sodger art, 

That passest by this grave, man, 
There moulders here a gallant heart— 

For Matthew was a brave man. 

If thou on men, their works and waya, 

Canst throw uncommon light, man, 
Here lies wha weel had won thy praise— who well 

For Matthew was a bright man. 

If thou at friendship's sacred ca', call 

Wad life itself resign, man, wonlrf 

Thy sympathetic tear maun fa'— 
For Matthew was a kind man. 



BURNS POEMS. 


169 


If thou art stanch without a stain, 




Like the unchanging blue, man, 




This was a kinsman o' thy ain — 


own 


For Matthew was a true man. 




If thou hast wit, and fun, and fire, 




And ne'er guid wine did fear, man, 


good 


This was thy billie, dam, and sire — 


brother 


For Matthew was a queer man. 




If ony whiggish whingin' sot, 


any, peevish 


To blame poor Matthew dare, man, 




May dool and sorrow be his lot I 


grief 


For Matthew was a rare man. 




TAM 0' SHANTER : 


A TALE. 




« 4 Of brownyia and of bogilis full is this buke." 




GawIX DOUGLA.S. 


When chapman billies leave the street, 


fellows 


And drouthy neibors, neibors meet, thirsty neighbours 


As market-days are wearing late, 




And folk begin to tak the gate ; 


road 


While we sit bousing at the nappy, 


drinking ale 


And gettin' fou and unco happy, 


tipsy, very 


We think na on the lang Scots\niles, 


not 


The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles, 


gaps 


That lie between us and our hame, 


home 


Where sits our sulky sullen dame, 




Gathering her brows like gathering storm, 




Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 




This truth fand honest Tarn o' Shantcr, 


found 


As he frae Ayr ae night did canter, 


from, one 


(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses 


whom 


For honest men and bonnie lasses.) 




Tarn ! hadst thou but been sae wise, 


so 


As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice ! 


own 


She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, told, 


worthless one 


A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum ; 


idle talker 


That frae November till October, 




Ae market day thou was na sober ; 




That ilka melder, wi' the miller, each 


corn-grinding 


Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ; 


long 


That every naig was ca'd a shoe on, 


nag, nailed 


The smith and thee gat roaring fou on ; 


got, drunk 


That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday, 




Thou drank at Kirkton Jeans till Monday. 




She prophesied, that, late or soon, 




Thou would be found deep drowned in Doon, 




Or catched wi' warlocks in the mirk, 


darkness 


By Alio way's auld haunted kirk. 





190 BURNS' POEMS. 



Ah, gentle dames ! it gars nie greet, makes, weep 

To think how mony counsels sweet, many 
How mon}' lengthened sage advices, 

The husband frae the wife despises ! from 

But to our tale : — Ae market-night, one 

Tain had got planted unco right, very 

Fast by an ingle bleezing finely, fire, blazing 
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely ; frothing new ale 

And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, shoemaker 
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony ; thirsty companion 

Tarn lo'ed him like a vera brither — very brother 

They had been fou' for weeks thegither ! together 

The night drave on wi 5 sangs and clatter, drove, songs 

And aye the ale was growing better : still 
The landlady and Tarn grew gracious, 
Wi* favours secret, sweet, and precious ; 

The Souter tauid his queerest stories, told 
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus : 

The storm without might rair and rustle — roar 

Tarn didna mind the storm a whistle. did not 

Care, mad to see a man sae happy, 

E'en drowned himself amang the nappy ! ale 

As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, home, loads 

The minutes winged their way wi' pleasure : 

Kings may be blest, but Tarn was glorious, 

O'er a' the ills o' life victorious. 

But pleasures are like poppies spread, 

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; 

Or like the snowfall in the river, 

A moment white — then melts for ever ; 

Or like the borealis race, 

That flit ere you can point their place ; 

Or like the rainbow's lovely form 

Evanishing amid the storm. 

Nae man can tether time or tide, no, bind 

The hour approaches, Tarn maun ride ; must 

That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane, stone 

That dreary hour he mounts his beast in ; 

And sic a night he taks the road in such 

As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last; 'twould blown 

The rattling showers rose on the blast ; 

The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed, 

Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed : long 

That night, a child might understand, 

The Deil had business on his hand. 

Weel mounted on his gray mare, Meg, well 

A better never lifted leg, 

Tarn skelpit on through dub and mire, dashed 

Despising wind, and rain, and fire ; 

Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet, sometimes, good 

Whiles crooning o'er some auld Sets sonnet ; humming 



BURNS' POEMS. 



1C1 



Whiles glowering round wi' prudent cares, staring 

Lest bogles catch hirn unawares. spirits 
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, 

Where gaists and houlets nightly cry. ghosts, owls 

By this time he was cross the ford, 

Where in the snaw the chapman smoored ; snow, smothered 
And past the birks and meikle stane, birches, big 

Where drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane ; bone 

And through the whins, and by the cairn, gone 

Where hunters fand the murdered bairn ; found 

And near the thorn, aboon the well, aboTe 

Where Mungo's mither hanged hersel. mother 

Before him Boon pours all his floods ; 
The doubling storm roars through the woods ; 
The lightnings flash from pole to pole, 
Near and more near the thunders roll ; 
When, glimmering through the groaning trees, 
Kirk-Alloway seemed in a bleeze ; blaze 

Through ilka bore the beams were glancing, every crevice 
And loud resounded mirth and dancing. 



Inspiring bold John Barleycorn ! 

What dangers thou canst make us scorn ! 

Wi' tippenny we fear nae evil ; two-penny ale 

Wi' usquebae well face the devil ! — whisky 

The swats sae reamed in Tammie's noddle, ale so worked, head 

Fair play, he cared na deils a boddle. small copper coin 

But Maggie stood right sair astonished, sore 

Till, by the heel and hand admonished, 

She ventured forward on the light ; 

And, wow ! Tarn saw an unco sight 1 strange 

Warlocks and witches in a dance ; wizards 

Nae cotillon brent new frae France, no, brought 

But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, 

Put life and mettle in their heels : 

A winnock-bunker in the east, window-seat 

There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast ; 

A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, shaggy do _■ 

To gie them music was his charge ; giv 

He screwed the pipes and gart them skirl, made, scream 

Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. vibrate 

Coffins stood round, like open presses.. 

That shawed the dead in their last dresses shewed 

And by some devilish cantrip slight trie.': 

Each in its cauld hand held a light — cold 

By which heroic Tarn was able 

To note upon the haly table, holy 

A murderer's banes in gibbet aims ; bones, irons 

Twa span-lang, wee unchristened bairns ; two, long 

A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, from, rope 

Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape ; mouth 

Five tomahawks, wi ? bluid red-rusted ; blood 

Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted ; 



162 



BURSS POEMS. 



A garter which a babe had strangled ; 
A knife, a father's throat had mangled, 
Whom his ain son o' life bereft, 
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft : 
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu', 
Which even to name wad be unlawfu*. 

As Tammie glowred, amazed and curious, 

The mirth and fun grew fast and furious : 

The piper loud and louder blew ; 

The dancers quick and quicker flew ; 

They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit, linked 

Till ilka carline swat and reekit, each, sweated, smoked 

And coost her duddies to the wark, cast, clothes, work 

And linket at it in her sark ! tripped, shift 

these 



own 

stuck, haft 
moro 
would 

stared 



Now Tarn, O Tarn ! had thae been queans, 

A' plump and strappin' in their teens ; 

Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen, greasy flannel 

Been snaw-white seventeen-hunder linen ! (fine linen) 

Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, these trews 

That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, once, good 

I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies, 

For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies ! 

But withered beldams, auld and droll, old 

Rigwoodie hags, wad spean a foal, would, wean 

Louping and flinging on a cummock, stick 

I wonder didna turn thy stomach. 

But Tarn kenned what was what fu' brawlie ; knew, well 

There was ae winsome wench and walie, one, goodly 

That night enlisted in the core, company 

(Lang after kenned on Carrick shore ; known 

For mony a beast to dead she shot, many, to death 

And perished mony a bonnie boat, 

And shook baith meikle corn and bear, both, much, barley 

And kept the country-side in fear.) 

Her cutty-sark, o' Paisley harn, 

That while a lassie she had worn, 

In longitude though sorely scanty, 

It was her best, and she was vauntie — boastful 

Ah ! little kenned thy reverend grannie knew 

That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, bought 

Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches), 

"Wad ever graced a dance o' witches ! 

But here my Muse her wing maun cour, must cower 

Sic flights are far beyond her power ; such 

To sing how Nannie lap and flang, leapt 

(A souple jad she was and Strang,) agile, strong 

And how Tarn stood like ane bewitched, one 

And thought his very een enriched ; eyes 
Even Satan glowred and fidged fu' fain, stared, fidgeted 

And hotched and blew mi' might and main : moved 

Till first ae caper, syne anither, then 

Tarn tint his reason a' thegither, lost, togetiw.- 



short shift, coarse tow 




Ae spring "brought oft i.ex .master liale. 
Bui left "beTruii l.er ain gray tail; 

T . 163 



BURNS POEMS. 



And roars out, " Weel done, Cutty-sark V well 

And in an instant all was dark : 

And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, 

When out the hellish legion sallied. 

As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke, fret 

When plundering herds assail their byke ; nest 

As open pussie's mortal foes, the hare 

When, pop ! she starts before their nose ; 

As eager runs the market-crowd, 

When " Catch the thief 1" resounds aloud ; 

So Maggie runs, the witches follow, 

Wi' mony an eldritch screech and hollow. frightful scream 

Ah, Tarn ! ah, Tarn ! thou'll get thy fairin' 1 

Fok now they'll roast thee like a herrin' ! 

In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin' ! 

Kate soon will be a woefu' woman ! 

Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 

And win the keystane* o' the brig ; 

There at them thou thy tail may toss, 

A running stream they darena cross ! dare not 

But ere the keystane she could make, 

Nae haet a tail she had to shake ! 

For Nannie, far before the rest, 

Hard upon noble Maggie prest, 

And flew at Tarn wi' furious ettle, endeavour 

But little wist she Maggie's mettle — 

Ae spring brought off her master hale, 

But left behind her ain gray tail : own 

The carline claught her by the rump, laid hold 

And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. 

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, who 

Ilk man and mother's son take heed: «ach 

W r hene'er to drink you are inclined, 

Or cutty-sarks run in your mind, 

Think ! ye may buy the joys ower dear— too 

Remember Tarn o' Shanter's mare. 



STANZAS 

ON THE BIRTH OF A POSTHUMOUS CHILD, BORN UNDER PECULIAR 
CIRCUMSTANCES OF FAMILY DISTRESS. 

Sweet floweret, pledge o' meikle love, mucli 

And ward o' mony a prayer, 

What heart o' stane wad thou na move, stone won! d, not 

Sae helpless, sweet, and fair ! so 

* It is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil spirits, have no power fo follow 
a poor wight any farther than the middle of the next running' stream. It may be 
proper likewise to mention to the benighted traveller, that when he falls in wiiL 
hcglet, whatever danger may be in his going forward, there is much more hazard 
la turning back.— B. 



164 BURNS' POEMS. 

November hirples o'er the lea limps 

Chill on thy lovely form ; 
And gane, alas ! the sheltering tree gone 

Should shield thee frae the storm. 

May He who gives the rain to pour, 

And wings the blast to blaw, 
Protect thee frae the driving shower, from 

The bitter frost and snaw 1 

May He, the friend of wo and want. 

Who heals life's various stounds, pangs 

Protect and guard the mother-plant, 

And heal her cruel wounds ! 

But late she nourished, rooted fast, 

Fair on the summer morn ; 
Now, feebly bends she in the blast, 

Unsheltered and forlorn. 

Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem, 

Unscathed by ruffian hand ! 
And from thee many a parent stem 

Arise to deck our land 1 



ELEGY ON THE LATE MISS BURNET OF MONBODDO. 

Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize 
As Burnet, lovely from her native skies ; 
Nor envious death so triumphed in a blow, 
As that which laid th' accomplished Burnet low. 

Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget ? 
In richest ore the brightest jewel set ! 
In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown, 
As by his noblest work the Godhead best is known. 

In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves ; 

Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore, 
Ye woodland choir that chant your idle loves, 

Ye cease to charm — Eliza is no more 1 

Ye heathy wastes, immixed with reedy fens ; 

Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stored 
Y"e rugged cliffs, o'erhanging dreary glens, 

To you I fly, ye with my soul accord. 

Princes, whose cumbrous pride was all their worth, 
Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail ? 

And thou, sweet excellence ! forsake our earth, 
And not a Muse in honest grief bewail ? 

We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride, 
And virtue's light, that beams beyond the spheres; 

But, like the sun eclipsed at morning-tide, 
Thou left'st us darkling in a world of tears. 



BURNS POEMS. 



The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee, 
That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care ; 

So decked the woodbine sweet yon aged tree ; 
So from it ravished, leaves it bleak and bare. 



LAMENT 

©F MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING, 

Now Nature hangs her mantle green 

On every blooming tree, 
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white 

Out o'er the grassy lea : 
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams, 

And glads the azure skies ; 
But nought can glad the weary wight. 

That fast in durance lies. 



Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, 

Aloft on dewy wing ; 
The merle, in his noontide bower, 

Makes woodland echoes ring; 
The mavis wild wi' mony a note, 

Sings drowsy day to rest : 
In love and freedom they rejoice, 

"WT care nor thrall opprest. 

Now blooms the lily by the bank, 

The primrose down the brae ; 
The hawthorn's budding in the glen, 

And milk-white is the slae ; 
The meanest hind in fair Scotland 

May rove their sweets ainang ; 
But I, the queen of a' Scotland, 

Maun lie in prison Strang ! 

I was the queen o' bonnie France, 

Where happy I hae been ; 
Fu' lightly rase I in the morn, 

As blithe lay down at e'en : 
And I'm the sovereign of Scotland,. 

And mony a traitor there ; 
Yet here I lie in foreign bands, 

And never-ending care. 

But as for thee, thou false woman ! 

My sister and my fae, 
Grim vengeance yet shall whet a sword 

That through thy soul shall gae ! 
The weeping blood in woman's breast 

Was never known to thee ; 
Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of wo 

Frae woman's pitying ee. 

My son ! my son ! may kinder stars 
Upon thy fortune shine ! 



blackbird 



thrush, many 



sloe 
peasant 



must, strong 



have 
rose 



man > 



foe 



go 



iropg 
from 



j€S BURNS' POEMS. 



And may those pleasures gild thy reign, 

That ne'er wad blink on mine ! would 

God keep thee frae thy mother's faes, 

Or turn their hearts to thee : 
And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, 

Remember him for me I 

O soon, to me, may summer suns 

Nae inair light up the morn ! no more 

Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds 

Wave o'er the yellow corn ! 
And in the narrow house o' death 

Let winter round me rave ; 
And the next flowers that deck the spring 

Bloom on my peaceful grave I 



LAMENT 

FOR JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 

The wind blew hollow frae the hills, from 

By fits the sun's departing beam 
Looked on the fading yellow woods 

That waved o'er Lugar's winding stream : 
Beneath a craigy steep, a Bard, rocky 

Laden with years and meikle pain, much 

In loud lament bewailed his lord, 

"Whom death had all untimely ta'en. taken 

He leaned him to an ancient aik, oak 

Whose trunk was mouldering down with years 
His locks were bleached white with time, 

His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears ; 
And as he touched his trembling harp, 

And as he tuned his doleful sang, song 

The winds,.lamenting through their caves, 

To echo bore the notes alang : along 

" Ye scattered birds that faintly sing, 

The reliques of the vernal quire ! 
Ye woods that shed on a* the winds 

The honours of the aged year 1 
A few short months, and glad and gay, 

Again ye'll charm the ear and ee ; eye 

But nocht in all revolving time nought 

Can gladness bring again to me. 

"lama bending, aged tree, 

That long has stood the wind and rain ; 
But now has come a cruel blast, 

And my last hold of earth is gane : gone 

Nae leaf o'mine shall greet the spring, no 

Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom ; 
But I maun lie before the storm, must 

And ithers plant them in my room. otheri 



BURNS* POEMS. 167 

**I T ve seen sae rnony ehangefu' years, bo 

On earth I am a stranger grown ; 
I wander in the ways of men, 

Alike unknowing and unknown : 
Unheard, unpitied, unrelieved, 

I bear alane my lade o' care, alone, load 

For silent, low, on beds of dust, 

Lie a' that would my sorrows share. 

M And last (the sum of a' my griefs !) 

My noble master lies in clay ; 
The flower amang our barons bold, 

His country's pride ! his country's stay- 
In weary being now I pine, 

For a' the life of life is dead, 
And hope has left my aged ken, 

On forward wing for ever fled. 

" Awake thy last sad voice, my harp ! 

The voice of wo and wild despair ; 
Awake ! resound thy latest lay — 

Then sleep in silence evermair ! evermore 

And thou, my last, best, only friend, 

That fillest an untimely tomb, 
Accept this tribute from the bard, 

Thou brought from fortune's mirkiest gloom darkest 

" In poverty's low barren vale 

Thick mists, obscure, involved me round ; 
Though oft I turn'd the wistful eye, 

Xae ray of fame was to be found : 
Thou found'st me, like the morning sun, 

That melts the fogs in limpid air, 
The friendless bard and rustic song 

Became alike thy fostering care. 

" why has worth so short a date ? 

While villains ripen gray with time ; 
Must thou, the noble, generous, great, 

Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime ! 
"Why did I live to see that day ? 

A day to me so full of wo ! — 
Oh had I met the mortal shaft 

Which laid my benefactor low ! 

" The bridegroom may forget the bride, 

Was made his wedded wife yestreen ; 
The monarch may forget the crown 

That on his head an hour has been ; 
The mother may forget the child 

That smiles sae sweetly on her knee ; so 

But I'll remember thee, Glencairn, 

And a' that thou hast done for me !" 



_J 



168 burns' poems. 



LINES 

SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD, BART. OF WHITEFOORD, WITH 
THE FOREGOING POEM. 

Thou, who thy honour a3 thy God rever'st, 

Who, save thy mind's reproach, naught earthly fear'st, 

To thee this votive offering I impart, 

The tearful tribute of a broken heart. 

The friend thou valued'st, I the patron loved ; 

His worth, his honour, all the world approved. 

We'll mourn till we too go as he has gone, 

And tread the dreary path to that dark world unknown. 



ADDRESS TO THE SHADE OF THOMSON, 

ON CROWNING HIS BUST AT EDNAM, ROXBURGHSHIRE WITH 
BAYS. 

While virgin Spring, by Eden's flood, 

Unfolds her tender mantle green, 
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood, 

Or tunes ^Eolian strains between : 

While Summer with a matron grace 

Retreats toDryburgh's cooling shade, 
Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace 

The progress of the spiky blade : 

While Autumn, benefactor kind, 

By Tweed erects his aged head, 
And sees, with self-approving mind, 

Each creature on his bounty fed : 

While maniac Winter rages o'er 

The hills whence classic Yarrow flows, 
Rousing the turbid torrent's roar, 

Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows : 

So long, sweet poet of the year ! 

Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won ; 
While Scotia, with exulting tear, 

Proclaims that Thomson was her son. 



TO MR MAXWELL OF TERRAUGHTY, ON HIS 
BIRTH-DAY. 

Health to the Maxwells' veteran chief ! 

Health, aye unsoured by care or grief alway? 

Inspired, I turned Fate's sybil leaf 

This natal morn ; 
I see thy life is stuff o' prief, prod 

Scarce quite half worn. 



BURRd' POEMS. 


16J3 


This day thou metes threescore eleven, 




And I can tell, that bounteous Heaven 




(The second-sight, ye ken, is given 


know 


To ilka Poet) 


each 


On thee a tack o' seven times seven 


lease 


"Will yet bestow it. 




If envious buckies view wi' sorrow perverse fellows 


Thy lengthened days on this blest morrow, 




May desolation's lang-teethed harrow, 




Kine miles an hour, 




Rake them like Sodom and Gomorrah, 




In brunstane stoure ! 




But for thy friends, and they are mony, 


many 


Baith honest men and lasses bonnie, 


both 


May couthie Fortune, kind and cannie, 


kindly, gentle 


In social glee, 




"Wi' mornings blythe, and e'enings funny, 




Bless them and thee ! 




Farewell, auld birkie ! Grace be near ye, 


fellow 


And then nae evil daurs to steer ye : 


dares, more 


Your friends aye love, your faes aye fear ye ; 


foes 


For me, shame fa' me, 


fall 


If neist my heart I dinna wear ye 


next, do not 


While Bur^s they ca' me ! 


call 


FOURTH EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY. 


I call no goddess to inspire my strains, 




A fabled Muse may suit a bard that feigns 




Friend of my life 1 my ardent spirit burns, 




And all the tribute of my heart returns, 




For boons accorded, goodness ever new, 




The gift still dearer, as the giver, you. 




Thou orb of day ! thou other paler light ! 




And all ye many sparkling stars of night ; 




If aught that giver from my mind efface, 




If I that giver's bounty e'er disgrace ; 




Then roll to me, along your wandering sphs 


re*, 


Only to number out a villain's years ! 




Sweet Sensibility, how charming, 




Thou, my friend, canst truly tell ; 




But how Distress, with horrors arming, 




Thou, alas ! hast known too well ! 




Fairest Flower, behold the lily, 




Blooming in the sunny ray ; 




Let the blast sweep o'er the valley, 




See it prostrate on the clay. 





17* BURNS POEMS. 



Hear the wood-lark charm the forest, 
Telling o'er his little joys ; 

But, alas ! a prey the surest 
To each pirate of the skies. 

Dearly bought the hidden treasure 
Finer feelings can bestow : 

Cords that vibrate sweetest pleasure 
Thrill the deepest notes of wo. 



THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN, 

*N OCCASIONAL ADDRESS SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HEB 
BENEFIT NIGHT, NOV. 26, 1792. 

While Europe's eye is fixed on mighty things, 
The fate of empires and the fall of kings ; 
While quacks of state must each produce his plan 
And even children lisp the Rights of Man ; 
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, 
The Rights of Woman merit some attention. 

First, in the sexes' intermixed connection, 
One sacred Right of Woman is — Protection. 
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate, 
Helpless, must fall before the blasts of fate, 
Sunk on the earth, defaced its lovely form, 
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm. 

Our second Right — but needless here is caution, 
To keep that Right inviolate's the fashion, 
Each man of sense has it so full before him, 
He'd die before he'd wrong it — 'tis Decorum. 
There was, indeed, in far less polished days, 
A time when rough rude man had naughty ways ; 
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot, 
Nay, even thus invade a lady's quiet. 
Now, thank our stars ! these Gothic times are fled ; 
Now, well-bred men — and you are all well-bred — ■ 
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers) 
Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners. 

For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest, 
That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest, 
Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration 
Most humbly own — 'tis dear, dear Admiration ! 
In that blest sphere alone we live and move ; 
There taste that life of life — immortal love. 
Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs, 
'Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares — 
When awful Beauty joins with all her charms, 
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms ? 
But truce with kings and truce with constitutions, 
With bloody armaments and revolutions, 
Let majesty your first attention summon, 
Ah ! qa ira/ the majesty of woman ! 



BURNS* TOEMS. 171 



TO MISS FONTENELLE, 

ON SEEING HER IN A FAVOURITE CHARACTER. 

Sweet naivete of feature, 

Simple, wild, enchanting elf, 
Not to thee, but thanks to Nature, 

Thou art acting but thyself. 

Wert thou awkward, stiff, affected, 
Spurning nature, torturing art ; 

Loves and graces all rejected, 
Then indeed thou'dst act a part. 



SONNET, 

WRITTEN ON THE 25TH JANUARY 1793, THE BIRTHDAY OF THE 
AUTHOR, ON HEARING A THRUSH SING IN A MORNING WALK. 

Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough, 
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain ; 
See aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign, 

At thy blythe carol clears his furrowed brow. 

So in lore Poverty's dominion drear, 

Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart ; 
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part, 

Nor asks if they bring ought to hope or fear. 

I thank thee, Author of this opening day ! 

Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies I 

Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys, 
What wealth could never give nor take away ! 

Yet come, thou child of poverty and care, 

The mite high Heaven bestowed, that mite with thee I'll sharo 



EPITAPH ON A LAP-DOG.- 

In wood and wild, ye warbling throng, 

Your heavy loss deplore 1 
Now half extinct your powers of song, 

Sweet Echo is no more. 

Ye jarring, screeching things around, 
Scream your discordant joys 1 

Now half your din of tuneless song 
With Echo silent lies. 



IMPROMPTU 

ON MRS RIDDEL'S BIRTHDAY, 4TH NOVEMBER 1793. 

Old Winter, with his frosty beard, 
Thus once to Jove his prayer preferred : 
" What have I done of all the year, 
To bear this hated doom severe ? 



172 BURNS' POEMS. 

My cheerless suns no pleasure know ; 
Night's horrid car drags, dreary slow ; 
My dismal months no joys are crowning, 
But spleeny English, hanging, drowning. 

"Now, Jove, for once be mighty civil, 

To counterbalance all this evil ; 

Give me, and I've no more to say, 

Give me Maria's natal-day 1 

That brilliant gift shall so enrich me, 

Spring, summer, autumn, cannot match me. 3 

" 'Ti3 done I " says Jove ; so ends my story, 

And Winter once rejoiced in glory. 



MONODY 

ON A LADY FAMED FOR HER CAPRICE. 

How cold is that bosom which folly once fired, 

How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glistened 

How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired, 
How dull is that ear which to flattery so listened ! 

If sorrow and anguish their exit await, 
From friendship and dearest affection removed ; 

How doubly severer, Eliza, thy fate, 
Thou diedst unwept, as thou livest unloved. 

Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you ; 

So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear : 
But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true, 

And flowers let us cull for Eliza's cold bier. 

We'll search through the garden for each silly flower, 
We'll roam through the forrest for each idle weed ; 

But chiefly the nettle, so typical, shower, 

For none e'er approached her but rued the rash deed 

We'll sculpture the marble, we'll measure the lay ; 

Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre ; 
There keen Indignation shall dart on her prey, 

Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire. 

THE EPITAPH. 

Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect, 
What once was a butterfly gay in life's beam : 

Want only of wisdom denied her respect, 
Want only of goodness denied her esteem, 



EPISTLE FROM ESOPUS TO MARIA. 

From those drear solitudes and frowsy cells, 
Where infamy with sad repentance dwells,; 
Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast, 
And deal from iron hands the spare repast ; 



burns' poems. 17S 



Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin, 
Blush at the curious stranger peeping in ; 
Where tiny thieves not destined yet to swing, 
Beat hemp for others, riper for the string : 
From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date, 
To tell Maria her Esopus' fate. 

1 Alas 1 I feel I am no actor here !' 

'Tis real hangmen, real scourges bear ! 

Prepare, Maria, for a horrid tale 

Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale ; 

Will make thy hair, though erst from gipsy polled, 

By barber woven, and by barber sold, 

Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care* 

Like hoary bristles to erect and stare. 

The hero of the mimic scene, no more 

I start in Hamlet, in Othello roar ; 

Or haughty chieftain, 'mid the din of arms, 

In Highland bonnet woo Malvina's charms ; 

While sans culottes stoop up the mountain high, 

And steal from me Maria's prying eye. 

Blest Highland bonnet ! once my proudest dress, 

Now prouder still, Maria's temples press. 

I see her wave thy towering plumes afar, 

And call each coxcomb to the wordy war ; 

I see her face the first of Ireland's sons, 

And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze ; 

The crafty colonel leaves the tartaned lines, 

For other wars, where he a hero shines ; 

The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred, 

Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head, 

Comes 'mid a string of coxcombs to display, 

That veni, vidi, vici, is his way ; 

The shrinking Bard adown an alley skulks, 

And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich hulks ; 

Though there, his heresies in church and state 

Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate : 

Still she undaunted reels and rattles on, 

And dares the public like a noontide sun. 

(What scandal called Maria's jaunty stagger, 

The rick'et reeling of a crooked swagger ; 

Wliose spleen e'en worse than Burns's venom whes 

He dips in gall unmixed his eager pen — 

And pours his vengeance in the burning line, 

Who christened thus Maria's lyre divine ; 

The idiot strum of vanity bemused, 

And even th' abuse of poesy abused ; 

Who called her verse a parish workhouse, made 

For motley, foundling fancies, stolen or strayed ?) 

A workhouse ! ah, that sound awakes my woes, 
And pillows on the thorn my racked repose ! 
In durance vile here must I wake and weep, 
And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep 1 
Thai straw where many a rogue has lain of yore, 



£74 BURNS' POEMS. 



And vermined gipsies littered heretofore. 

Why Lonsdale thus, thy wrath on vagrants pour ■ 

Must earth no rascal save thyself endure ? 

Thou know'st the Virtues cannot hate thee worse ; 

The Vices also, must they club their curse ? 

Or must no tiny sin to others fall, 

Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all ? 

Maria, send me, too, thy griefs and cares ; 

In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares. 

As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls, 

Who on my fair one satire's vengeance hurls ? 

Who calls thee pert, affected, vain coquette, 

A wit in folly, and a fool in wit \ 

Who says that fool alone is not thy due, 

And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true ? 

Our force united on thy foes we'll turn, 

And dare the war with all of woman born : 

For who can write and speak as thou and I ? 

My periods that deciphering defy, 

And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply. 



A VISION. 

As I stood by yon roofless tower, 
Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air, 

Where th' howlet mourns in her ivy bower, swl 

And tells the midnight moon her care ; 

The winds were laid, the air was still. 

The stars they shot along the sky ; 
The fox was howling on the hill, 

And the distant echoing glens reply. 

The stream, adown its hazelly path, 

Was rushing by the ruined wa's, 
Hasting to join the sweeping Nith, 

Whose distant roaring swells and fa's. 

The cauid blue north was streaming forth cold 

Her lights, wi' hissing eerie din ; dreary 

Athort the lift they start and shift, athwart, sky 

Like fortune's favours, tint as win. ost 

By heedless chance I turned mine eyes, 

And, by the moonbeam, shook to see 
A stern and stalwart ghaist arise, ghost 

Attired as minstrels wont to be. 

Had I a statue been o stane, stone 

His darin' look had daunted me ; 
And on his bonnet graved was plain, 

The sacred posy — " Libertie 1" 

And frae his harp sic strains did flow, from, such 

Might roused the slumb'ring dead to hear • 



BURNS POEMS. 175 



But oh ! it was a tale of wo, 
As ever met a Briton's ear. 

He sang wi' joy the former day, 
He weeping wailed his latter times ; 

But what he said it was nae play — 
I winna ventur't in my rhymes. 



SONNET ON THE DEATH OF GLENRIDDEL, 

No more, ye warblers of the wood, no more ; 
Nor pour your descant grating on my soul : 
Thou young-eyed Spring, gay in thy verdant stole — 

More welcome were to me grim Winter's wildest roar. 

How can ye charm, ye flowers, with all your dyes ? 

Yo blow upon the sod that wraps my friend 1 

How can I to the tuneful strain attend ? 
That strain flows round th' untimely tomb where Riddel lies. 

Yes, pour, ye warblers, pour the notes of wo, 
And soothe the Virtues weeping o'er his bier : 
The Man of Worth, and hath not left his peer, 

Is in his narrow house, for ever darkly low. 

Thee, Spring, again with joy shall others greet ; 
Me, memory of my loss will only meet. 



Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among, 
Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song, 

To thee I turn with swimming eyes ; 
Where is that soul of freedom fled ? 
Immingled with the mighty dead, 

Beneath the hallowed turf where Wallace lies 
Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death, 

Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep, 

Disturb ye not the hero's sleep, 
Nor give the coward secret breath. 
Is this the power in freedom's war, 

That wont to bid the battle rage ? 
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate, 

Braved usurpation's boldest daring ; 
That arm which, nerved with thundering fate, 

Crushed the despot's proudest bearing : 
One quenched in darkness like the sinking star, 

And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless age 



VERSES TO MISS GRAHAM OF FINTRY. 

Here, where the Scottish Muse immortal lives, 
In sacred strains and tuneful numbers joined, 

Accept the gift, though humble he who gives ; 
Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind. 



J 76 EURNS' POEMS. 

So may no ruffian feeling in thy breast, 
Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among ; 

But Peace attune thy gentle soul to rest, 
Or Love ecstatic wake his seraph song ; 

Or Pity's notes, in luxury of tears, 
As modest Want the tale of wo reveals ; 

While conscious Virtue all the strain endears, 
And heaven-born Piety her sanction seals. 



THE TREE OF LIBERTY. 

Heard ye o' the tree o' France, 

I watna what's the name o't ; know not 

Around it a' the patriots dance, 

Weel Europe kens the fame o't. well, knows 

It stands where ance the Bastile stood, once 

A prison built by kings, man, 
When Superstition's wicked brood 

Kept France in leading-strings, man. 

Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit, suuh 

Its virtues a' can tell, man ; 
It raises man aboon the brute, above 

It maks him ken himsel, man. know 

Gif ance the peasant taste a bit, if once 

He's greater than a lord, man, 
And wi' the beggar shares a mite 

O' a' he can afford, man. 

This fruit is worth a' Afric's wealth, 

To comfort us 'twas sent, man : 
To gie the sweetest blush o' health, 

And mak us a' content, man. 
It clears the een, it cheers the heart, eye« 

Maks high and low gude friends, man ; 
And he wha acts the traitor's part, 

It to destruction sends, man. 

My blessings aye attend the han\ 

Wha pitied Gallia's slaves, man. wno 

And staw a branch, frae that far lan', stole 

Frae yont the western waves, man. from beyond 

Fair Virtue watered it wi' care, 

And now she sees wi' pride, man, 
How weel it buds and blossoms there, well 

Its branches spreading wide, man. 

But vicious folk aye hate to see 

The works o* Virtue thrive, man ; 
The courtly vermin's banned the tree, 

And grat to see it thrive, man ; wept 

King Loui' thought to cut it down, 

When it was unco sma', man; very 

For this the watchman cracked his crown, 

Cut aff his heal and a', man. 

j 



BUENS POEMS. 



A wicked crew syne, on a time, 

Did tak a solemn aith, man, 
It ne'er should nourish to its prime, 

I wat they pledged their faith, man. 
Awa they gaed wi' mock parade, 

Like beagles hunting game, man, 
But soon grew weary o' the trade, 

And wished they'd been at hame, man. 

For Freedom, standing by the tree, 

Her sons did loudly ca', man ; 
She sang a sang o' liberty, 

Which pleased them ane and a', man. 
By her inspired, the new-born race 

Soon drew the avenging steel, man: 
The hirelings ran — her foes gied chase, 

And banged the despot weel, man. 

Let Britain boast her hardy oak, 

Her poplar and her pine, man, 
Auld Britain ance could crack her joke, 

And o'er her neighbours shine, man. 
But seek the forest round and round, 

And soon 'twill be agreed, man, 
That sic a tree can not be found 

'Twixt London and the Tweed, man. 

Without this tree, alake this life 

Is but a vale o' wo, man ; 
A scene o' sorrow mixed wi' strife, 

Nae real joys we know, man. 
We labour soon, we labour late, 

To feed the titled knave, man 5 
And a'* the comfort we're to get, 

Is that ayont the grave, man. 

Wi' plenty 0' sic trees, I trow, 

The warld would live in peace, man ; 
The sword would help to mak a plough, 

The din 0' war wad cease, man. 
Like brethren in a common cause, 

We'd on each other smile, man ; 
And equal rights and equal laws 

Wad gladden every isle, man 



then 
oatn 



know 
[iv, ay, went 



home 



gave 
beat 



bevond 



world 



Wae worth the loon wha wadna eat 

Sic halesome dainty cheer, man ; 
I'd gie my shoon frae aff my feet, 

To taste sic fruit, I swear, man. 
Syne let us pray, auld England may 

Sure plant this far-famed tree, man ; 
And blithe we'll sing, and hail the clay 

That gave us liberty, man. 



would 

woe, fellow, wouldn't 

wholesome 

give, shoes, off 

such 
then 



178 BURNS POEMS. 



TO DR MAXWELL, 

ON MISS JESSIE STAIG'S RECOVERY. 

Maxwell, if merit here you crave, 

That merit I deny : 
You save fair Jessy from the grave ! — 

An angel could not die! 



TO CHLORIS. 

Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend, 

Nor thou the gift refuse, 
Nor with unwilling ear attend 

The moralising Muse. 

Since thou, in all thy youth and charm3, 

Must bid the world adieu, 
(A world 'gainst peace in constant arms) 

To join the friendly few : 

Since thy gay morn of life o'ercast, 

Chill came the tempest's lower ; 
(And ne'er miisfortune's eastern blast 

Did nip a fairer flower :) 

Since life's gay scenes must charm no moro ; 

Still much is left behind ; 
Still nobler wealth hast thou in store— 

The comforts of the mind 1 

Thine is the self-approving glow, 

On conscious honour's part ; 
And, dearest gift of Heaven below, 

Thine friendship's truest heart. 

The joys refined of sense and taste, 

With every Muse to rove : 
And doubly were the Poet blest, 

These joys could he improve. 



TOAST FOR THE 12TH OF APRIL. 

Instead of a song, boys, I'll give you a toast — 
Here's the memory of those on the twelfth that we lost f- 
That we lost, did I say ? nay, in truth, that we found ; 
For their fame it shall last while the world goes round. 
The next in succession, I'll give you — the King 
Whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing; 
And here's the grand fabric, our free Constitution, 
As built on the base of the great Revolution ; 
And longer with politics not to be crammed, 
Mat Anarchy perish — be Tyrants condemned ; 
And who would to Liberty e'er prove disloyal, 
May his son be a hangman, and he his first trial ! 



BUESS roEMS. 



179 



INSCRIPTION 

FOR AN ALTAR TO INDEPENDENCE, AT KERROUGHTREE, THE 
SEAT OF MR HERON. 

Thou of an independent mind, 

With soul resolved, with soul resigned ; 

Prepared Power's proudest frown to brave, 

Who wilt not be, nor have a slave ; 

Virtue alone who dost revere, 

Thy own reproach alone dost fear, 

Approach this shrine, and worship here. 



VERSES 

ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WOODS NEAR DRUMLANRIG. 

As on the banks o' wandering Nith, 

Ae smiling simmer-morn I strayed, one 

And traced its bonnie howes and haughs, vales, uplands 

"Where Unties sang and lambkins played, linnets 

I sat me down upon a craig, 

And drank my fill o' fancy's dream, 
When, from the eddying deep below, 

Uprose the Genius of the stream.] 

Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow, 

And troubled, like his wintry wave, 
And deep, as sughs the boding wind whistles 

Amang his eaves, the sigh he gave — . among 

" And came you hear, my son," he cried, 

" To wander in my birken shade ? birchen 

To muse some favourite Scottish theme, 

Or sing some favourite Scottish maid. 

" There was a time, it's nae lang syne, not long ago 

Ye might hae seen me in my pride, have 

When a' my banks sae bravely saw, so 

Their woody pictures in my tide ; 
When hanging beech and spreading elm 

Shaded my stream sae clear and cool ; 
And stately oaks their twisted arms 

Threw broad and dark across the pool ; 

" When, glinting through the trees, appeared 

The wee white cot aboon the mill, above 

And peacefu' rose its ingle reek, rire, smoke 

That slowly curled up the hill. 

But now the cot is bare and cauld cold 

Its branchy shelter's lost and gane, gone 
And scarce a stunted birk is left stunted birch 

To shiver in the blast its lane." alone 

* Alas 1" said I, what ruefu' chance 

Has twined ye o* your stately trees ? deprived 



ISC BURNS POEMS. 



Has laid your rocky bosom bare ? 

Has stripped the deeding o' your braes ? clothing 

Was it the bitter eastern blast. 

That scatters blight in early spring ? 
Or was't the wil'fire scorched their boughs, wild-fire 

Or canker-worm wi f secret sting ? " 

" Nae eastlin blast," the sp'rite replied ; eastern 

" It blew na here sae fierce and fell, not so 

And on my dry and halesome banks wholesome 

Nae canker-worms get leave to dwell : 
Man ! cruel man ! " the Genius sighed — 

As through the cliffs he sank him down — 
" The worm that gnawed my bonnie trees, 

That reptile wears a ducal crown." 



ADDRESS, 
SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HER BENEFIT-NIGHT, 17S5. 

Still anxious to secure your partial favour, 

And not less anxious, sure, this night, than ever, 

A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter, 

'T would vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better ; 

So sought a Poet, roosted ne'er the skies, 

Told him I came to feast my curious eyes ; 

Said, nothing like his works was ever printed ; 

And last, my Prologue-business slily hinted. 

" Ma'am, let me tell you," quoth my man of rhymes, 

" 1 know your bent — these are no laughing times : 

Can you — but, Miss, I own I have my fears — 

Dissolve in pause and sentimental tears, 

With laden sighs, and solemn rounded sentence ; 

Rouse from his sluggish slumbers fell Repentance ; 

Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand, 

Waving on high the desolating brand, 

Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty land ?" 

I could no more — askance the creature eyeing, 

D'ye think, said I, this face was made for crying ? 

I'll laugh, that's poz — nay, more, the world shall know it, 

And so, your servant ! gloomy Master Poet 1 

Firm as my creed, Sirs, 'tis my fixed belief, 

That Misery's another word for Grief; 

I also think — so may I be a bride 1 

That so much laughter, so much life enjoyed. 

Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh, 
Still under bleak Misfortune's blasting eye ; 
Doomed to that sorest task of man alive — 
To make three guineas do the work of five : 
Laugh in Misfortune's face — the beldam witch 1 
Say, you'll be merry, though you can't be rich. 
Thou other man of care, the wretch in love. 
Who long with jiltish arts and airs hast strove ; 



BURNS POEMS. 



181 



Who, as the bough3 all temptingly project, 
Measur'st in desperate thought — a rope — thy neck- 
Or, where the beetling cliff o'erhangs the deep, 
Peerest to meditate the healing leap : 
Wouldst thou be cured, thou silly, moping elf! 
Laugh at her follies — laugh e'en at thyself : 
Learn to despise those frowns now so terrific, 
And love a kinder — that's your grand specific. 



To sum up all, be merry, I advise ; 

&nd as we're merry, may we still be wise. 



TO COLLECTOR MITCHELL. 

Friend of the Poet, tried and leal, loyal 

Wha, wanting thee, might beg or steal ; who 
Alake, alake, the meikle deil 

WT a' his witches 

Are at it, skelpin' jig and reel, jumping 

In my poor pouches I pockets 

I modestly fu' fain wad hint it, would 

That one-pound-one, is sairly want it ; sorely 

If wi' the hizzie down ye sent it, servant -girl 

It would be kind ; 

And while my heart wi' life-blood dunted, throbbed 

I'd bear't in mind. 

So may the auld year gang out moaning go 

To see the new come, laden, groaning, 

Wi' double plenty o'er the loanin pathway 

To thee and thine : 
Domestic peace and comforts crowning 

The hale design. whole 

POSTSCRIPT. 

Ye've heard this while how I've been licket, troubled 

And by fell death was nearly nicket ; seized 
Grim loon ! he got me by the fecket, fellow, waistcoat 

And sair me sheuk ; sore, shook 

But by guid luck I lap a wicket, jumped 

And turned a neuk. nook 

But by that health, I've got a share o't, 

And by that life, I'm promised mair o't, more 

My haie and weel I'll tak a care o't, health, welfare 

A tentier way ; more careful 

Then farewell folly, hide and hair o't, entirely 

For ance and aye. 



182 BURNS' poems. 



THE DEAN OF FACULTY. 

A BALLAD. 

Dire was the hate at old Harlaw, 

That Scot to Scot did carry; 
And dire the discord Langside saw, 

For beauteous hapless Mary : 
But Scot with Scot ne'er met so hot, 

Or were more in fury seen, sir, 
Than 'twixt Hal and Bob* for the famous job—* 

Who should be Faculty's Dean, sir. 

This Hal for genius, wit, and lore, 

Among the first was numbered ; 
But pious Bob, 'mid learning's store, 

Commandment tenth remembered. 
Yet simple Bob the victory got, 

And won his heart's desire ; 

* * * * 

Squire Hal besides had in this case 

Pretensions rather brassy, 
For talents to deserve a place 

Are qualifications saucy ; 
So their worships of the Faculty, 

Quite sick of merit's rudeness, 
Chose one who should owe it all, d'ye see, 

To their gratis grace and goodness. 

In your heretic sins may you live and die, 

Ye heretic Eight-and-Thirty, 
But accept, ye sublime majority, 

My congratulations hearty. 
With your Honours and a certain King 

In your servants this is striking, 
The more incapacity they bring, 

The more they're to your liking. 



THE HERMIT. 

WRITTEN ON A MARBLE SIDEBOARD, IN THE HERMITAGE BE- 
LONGING TO THE DUKE OF ATHOLE, IN THE WOOD OF ABER- 
FELDY. 

Whoe'er thou art, these lines now reading, 
Think not, though from the world receding, 
I joy my lonely day3 to lead in 

This desert drear ; 
That fell remorse a conscience bleeding 

Hath led me here. 

No thought of guilt my bosom sours ; 
Free-wili'd I fled from courtly bowers ; 

* Henry Erskine and Robert Dundaa. Dundas was chosen by a majority of 123 
to 38 votes. 



BURNS' rOEMS. 18S 



For well I saw in halls and towers 

That lust and pride, 
The arch-fiend's dearest, darkest powers, 

In state preside. 

I saw mankind with vice incrusted ; 
I saw that honour's sword was rusted ; 
That few for aught but folly lusted ; 
That he was still deceived who trusted 

To love or friend ; 
And hither came, with men disgusted, 

My life to end. 

In this lone cave, in garments lowly, 

Alike a foe to noisy folly, 

And brow-bent gloomy melancholy, 

I wear away 
My life, and in my office holy 

Consume the day. 

This rock my shield, when storms are blowing; 
The limpid streamlet yonder flowing 
Supplying drink, the earth bestowing 

My simple food ; 
But few enjoy the calm I know in 

This desert wood. 

Content and comfort bless me more in 

This grot, than e'er I felt before in 

A palace — and with thoughts still soaring 

To God on high, 
Each night and morn with voice imploring^ 

This wish I sigh : 

" Let me, Lord ! from life retire, 
Unknown each guilty worldly fire, 
Remorse's throb, or loose desire ; 

And when I die, 
Let me in this belief expire — 

To God I fly." 

Stranger, if full of youth and riot, 
And yet no grief has marred thy quiet, 
Thou haply throw'st a scornful eye at 

The hermit's prayer — 
But if thou hast good cause to sigh at 

Thy fault or care ; 

If thou hast known false love's vexation^ 
Or hast been exiled from thy nation, 
Or guilt affrights thy contemplation, 

And makes thee pine, 
Oh ! how must thou lament thy station* 

And envy mine ! 



1M burns' poems. 



THE VOWELS : 

A TALE. 

'TWAS where the birch and sounding thong are plied, 

The noisy domicile of pedant pride ; 

Where Ignorance her darkening vapour throws, 

And Cruelty directs the thickening blows ; 

Upon a time, Sir Abece the great, 

In all his pedagogic powers elate, 

His awful chair of state resolves to mount, 

And call the trembling vowels to account. 

First entered A, a grave, broad, solemn wight, 
But, ah ! deformed, dishonest to the sight ! 
His twisted head looked backward on his way, 
And flagrant from the scourge he grunted, at/ 

Reluctant, E stalked in ; with piteous race 
The justling tears ran down his honest face ! 
That name, that well-worn name, and all his own, 
Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne ! 
The pedant stifles keen the Roman sound 
Not all his mongrel diphthongs can compound ; 
And next the title following close behind, 
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assigned. 

The cobwebbed Gothic dome resounded, Y ! 
In sullen vengeance, I, disdained reply : 
The pedant swung his felon cudgel round, 
And knocked the groaning vowel to the ground ! 

In rueful apprehension entered O, 

The wailing minstrel of despairing wo ; 

Th' Inquisitor of Spain the most expert, 

Might there have learnt new mysteries of his art ; 

So grim, deformed, with horrors entering, U 

His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew ! 

As trembling U stood staring all aghast, 
The pedant in his left hand clutched him fast, 
In helpless infants' tears he dipped his right, 
Baptised him eu y and kicked him from his sight. 



ON PASTORAL POETRY. 

Hail Poesie ! thou Nymph reserved ! 

In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerved have 

Frae common-sense, or sunk ennerved from 

'Mang heaps o' clavers ; babblings 

And och I ower aft thy joes hae starved, too oft,lorero 

Mid a' thy favours 

Say, Lassie, why thy train amang, 
While loud, the trump's heroic clang, 



BURNS' TOEMS. 185 



And sock or buskin skelp alang dasn 

To death or marriage ; 
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang one 

But wi' miscarriage ? 

In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives ; 
Eschylus' pen Will Shakspeai e drives ; 
Wee Pope, the knurlin, 'till him rives dwarf 

Horatian fame ; 
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives 

Ev'n Sappho's flame. 

But thee, Theocritus, wha matches ? who 

They're no herd's ballats, Maro's catches ; ballads 

Squire Pope but busks his skinklin patches dresses, spark- 

O' heathen tatters : [ling 

I pass by hunders, nameless wretches, hundreds 

That ape their betters. 

In this braw age o' wit and lear, learning 

Will nane the Shepherd's whistle mair none, mor 

Blaw sweetly in its native air blow 

And rural grace ; 
And wi' the far-famed Grecian, share 

A rival place ? 

Yes ! there is ane ; a Scottish callan — one, lad 

There's ain ; come forrit, honest Allan ! forward 

Thou need na jouk behint the hallan, skulk, door 

A chiel sae clever ; man so 
The teeth o' Time may gnaw Tantallan, 

But thou's for ever ! 

Thou paints auld Nature to the nines, 

In thy sweet Caledonian lines ; 

Nae gowden stream through myrtles twines, golden 

Where Philomel, 
While nightly breezes sweep the vines, 

Her griefs will tell ! 

In gowany glens thy burnie strays, daisied 

Where bonnie lasses bleach their claes . clothes 

Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes, wood 

Wi' hawthorns grey, 
Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays 

At close o' day. 

Thy rural loves are nature's sel' ; sel 

Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell ; no, fiood 

Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell 

O' witchin' love ; 
That charm that can the strongest quell, 

The sternest move. 



lfift burns' poems. 



TO A KISS. 

Humid seal of soft affections, 
Tend'rest pledge of future bliss, 

Dearest tie of young connections, 
Love's first snow-drop, virgin kiss. 

Speaking silence, dumb confession, 
Passion's birth, and infant's play, 

Dove-like fondness, chaste concession, 
Glowing dawn of brighter day. 

Sorrowing joy, adieu's last action, 
"When ling'ring lips no more must join ; 

"What words can ever speak affection, 
So thrilling and sincere as thine ! 



LAMENT, 

WRITTEN WHEN THE POET WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE SCOTLAND. 

O'er the mist-shrouded cliffs of the lone mountain straying, 
Where the wild winds of winter incessantly rave, 

What woes wring my heart while intently surveying 
The storm's gloomy path on the breast of the wave. 

Ye foam-crested billows, allow me to wail, 
Ere ye toss me afar from my lov'd native shore ; 

Where the flower which bloom'd sweetest in Coila's green vale, 
The pride of my bosom, my Mary's no more. 

No more by the banks of the streamlet we'll wander, 
And smile at the moon's rimpled face in the wave ; 

No more shall my arms cling with fondness around her, 
For the dew-drops of morning fall cold, on her grave. 

No more shall the soft thrill of love warm my breast, 
I haste with the storm to a far distant shore ; 

Where unknown, unlamented, my ashes shall rest, 
And joy shaJl revisit my bosom no more. 



AN EXTEMPORE EFFUSION, 

ON BEING APPOINTED TO THE EXCISE. 

Searching auld wives' barrels, 

Och, hon ! the day ! 
That clarty barm should stain my laurels ; dirty yeast 

But — what 11 ye 
These muvin' things ca'd wives and weans, moving, children 

Wad muve the very hearts o' stane3 ! stones 



B CRN S' POEMS. 157 



TO MY BED. 

Thou bed, in which I first began 
To be that various creature — Man / 
And when again the Fates decree, 
The place where I must cease to be ; — 
When sickness conies, to whom I fly, 
To soothe my pain, or close mine eye ;— 
When cares surround me, where I weep, 
Or loose them all in balmy sleep ; — 
When sore with labour, whom I court. 
And to thy downy breast resort — 
The centre thou — where grief and pain, 
Disease and rest, alternate reign. 
Oh, since within thy little space, 
So many various scenes take place ; 
Lessons as useful shalt thou teach, 
As sages dictate — churchmen preach ; 
And man, convinced by thee alone, 
This great important truth shall own : 
" That thin partitions do di. 
The bounds vjlcere good and ill reside; 
That nought is perfect here below ,• 
But BLISS still bordering upon WOE." 



LINES 

SENT TO A GENTLEMAN WHOM HE HAD OFFENDED. 

The friend whom wild from wisdom's way. 
The fumes of wine infuriate send 

(Not moony madness more astray)— 
Who but deplores that hapless friend ? 

Mine was th' insensate frenzied part, 
Ah, why should I such scenes outlive ! 

Scenes so abhorrent to my heart ! 
'Tis thine to pity and forgive. 



THE RUINED MAID'S LAMENT. 

Oh, meikle do I rue, fause love, much, regret, false 

Oh s airly do 1 rue, 
That e'er I heard your flattering tongue, 

That e'er your face I knew. 

Oh, I hae tint my rosy cheeks, lost 

Likewise my waist sae sma' ; 
And I hae lost my lightsome heart, 

That little wist a fa'. 

Now I maun thole the scornfu' sneer must beai 

0' mony a saucy quean ; many, proud 



188 BURNS' POEM*. 

When, gin the truth were a but kent, if, known 

Her life's been warse than mine. worse 

Whene'er my father thinks on me, 

He stares into the wa' ; 
My mother, she has ta'en the bed taken 

Wi' thinking on my fa\ 

Whene'er I hear my father's foot, 

My heart wad burst wi' pain ; would 

Whene'er I meet my mither's ee, eye 

My tears rin down like rain. 

Alas ! sae sweet a tree as love 

Sic bitter fruit should bear ! 
Alas J that e'er a bonnie face 

Should draw a santy tear ! e«lt 



ON THE DUKE OF QUEENSBERRY. 

How shall I sing Drumlanrig's Grace — 
Discarded remnant of a race 

Once great in martial story ? 
His forbears' virtues all contrasted — 
The very name of Douglas blasted — 

His that inverted glory. 

Hate, envy, oft the Douglas bore ; 
But he has superadded more, 

And sunk them in contempt ; 
Follies and crimes have stain'd the name, 
But, Queensberry, thine the virgin claim, 

From ought that's good exempt. 



ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CHILD. 

Oh sweet be thy sleep in the land of the grave, 

My dear little angel, for ever ; 
For ever — oh no ! let not man be a slave, 

His hopes from existence to sever. 

Though cold be the clay where thou pillow'st thy head, 

In the dark silent mansions of sorrow, 
The spring shall return to thy low narrow bed, 

Like the beam of the day-star to-morrow. 

The flower-stem shall bloom like thy sweet seraph form, 

Ere the spoiler had nipt thee in blossom, 
When thou shrunk'st frae the scowl of the loud winter storm, 

And nestled thee close to that bosom, 



BURNS' TOEMS. 189 



Oh still I behold thee, all lovely in death, 

Reclined on the lap of thy mother ; 
When the tear trickled bright, when the short stifled breath. 

Told how dear ye were aye to each other. 

My child, thou art gone to the home of thy rest, 

Where suffering no longer can harm ye, 
"Where the songs of the good, where the hymns of the blest, 

Through an endless existence shall charm thee. 

While he, thy fond parent, must sighing sojourn, 

Through the dire desert regions of sorrow, 
O'er the hope and misfortune of being to mourn, 

And sigh for this life's latest morrow. 



WRITTEN IN A LADY'S POCKET-BOOK. 

Grant me, indulgent Heav'n, that I may lire, 
To see the miscreants feel the pains they give, 
Deal freedom's sacred treasures free as air, 
Till slave and despot be but things which were. 



FRAGMENT. 

The black-headed eagle 

As keen as a beagle, 
He hunted owre height and owre howe ; hollow 

But fell in a trap 

On the braes o' Gemappe, 
E'en let him come out as he d<we. can 



WRITTEN OX A PANE OF GLASS, 

ON THE OCCASION OF A NATIONAL THANKSGIVING FOJJ A 
NAVAL VICTORY. 

Ye hypocrites I are these your pranks ? — 
To murder men, and gie God thanks ! 
For shame ! gie o'er, proceed no further — 
God won't accept your thanks for murther I 



THE TRUE LOYAL NATIVES. 

Ye true " Loyal natives," attend to my song 

In uproar and riot rejoice the night long : 

From envy and hatred your corps is exempt ; 

But where is your shield from the darts o' contempt ? 



190 BURNS' poems. 



ON THE AUTHOR'S FATHER. 

Oh ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains, 

Draw near with pious rev'rence and attend I 
Here lie the loving husband's dear remains, 

The tender father, and the gen'rous friend. 
The pitying heart that felt for human woe ; 

The dauntless heart that fear'd no human piide ; 
The friend of man, to vice alone a foe ; 

" For ev'n his failings lean'd to virtue's side." 



EPITAPH ON THE POET'S DAUGHTER. 

Here lies a rose, a budding rose, 

Blasted before its bloom ; 
Whose innocence did sweets disclose 

Beyond that flower's perfume. 
To those who for her loss are grieved, 

This consolation's given — 
She's from a world of woe relieved, 

And blooms a rose in Heaven. 



" THOUGH FICKLE FORTUNE." 

Though fickle Fortune has deceiv'd me, 
She promis'd fair, and perform'd but ill ; 

Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav'd me, 
Yet I bear a heart shall support me still. — 

I'll act with prudence as far's I'm able, 
But if success I must never find, 

Then come, Misfortune, I bid thee welcome, 
I'll meet thee with an undaunted mind. 



TO THE OWL. 



Sad Bird of Night, what sorrow calls thee forth, 
To vent thy plaints thus in the midnight hour ; 

Is it some blast that gathers in the north, 
Threat'ning to nip the verdure of thy bow'r ? 

Is it, sad Owl, that Autumn strips the shade, 
And leaves thee here, unsheltered and forlorn ? 

Or fear that Winter will thy nest invade ? 
Or friendly Melancholy bids thee mourn ? 

Shut out, lone bird, from all the feather'd train, 
To tell thy sorrows to th' unheeding gloom ; 

No friend to pity when thou dost complain, 
Grief all thy thought, and solitude thy home. 



BURNS' POEMS. 191 



Sing cm, sad mourner ! I will bless thy strain, 
And pleased in sorrow listen to thy song : 

Sing on, sad mourner ! to the night complain, 
While the lone echo wafts thy notes along. 

Is beauty less, when down the glowing cheek 
Sad piteous tears in native sorrows fall ? 

Less kind the heart, when Sorrow bids it break ? 
Less happy he who lists to pity's call ? 

Ah no, sad Owl ! nor is thy voice less sweet, 
That sadness tunes it, and that grief is there ; 

That Spring's gay notes, unskilled, thou canst repeat < 
And sorrow bids thee to the gloom repair. 

Nor that the treble songsters of the day, 

Are quite estranged, sad Bird of Night ! from thee ; 
Nor that the thrush deserts the evening spray, 

When darkness calls thee from thy reverie. 

From some old tower, thy melancholy dome, 
While the grey walls and desert solitudes 

Return each note, responsive, to the gloom 
Of ivied coverts, and surrounding woods ; 

There hooting, I will list more pleased to thee, 

Than ever lover to the nightingale ; 
Or drooping wretch, oppressed with misery, 

Lending his ear to some condoling tale. 



TO THE RUINS OF LINCLUDEN ABBE'i 

Ye holy walls, that still sublime 
Resist the crumbling touch of Time, 
How strongly still your form displays 
The piety of ancient days. 
As through your ruins, hoar and grey- 
Ruins, yet beauteous in decay — 
The silvery moonbeams trembling fly, 
The forms of ages long gone by 
Crowd thick on Fancy's wond'ring eye, 
And wake the soul to musings high. 
£v'n now, as lost in thought profound. 
I view the solemn scene around, 
And pensive gaze with wistful eyes, 
The past returns, the present flies ; 
Again the dome, in pristine pride, 
Lifts high its roof, and arches wide, 
That, knit with curious tracery 
Each Gothic ornament display ; 
The high-arched windows, painted fair 
Show many a saint and martyr there ; 



119 burns' poems. 



As on their slender forms I gaze, 
Methinks they brighten to a blaze ; 
With noiseless step and taper bright, 
What are yon forms that meet my sight! 
Slowly they move, while every eye 
Is heavenward raised in ecstasy : — 
'lis the fair, spotless, vestal train, 
That seeks in prayer the midnight fane. 
And hark ! what more than mortal sound 
Of music breathes the pile around ? 
'Tis the soft chaunted choral song, 
Whose tones the echoing aisles prolong : 
Till thence return'd they softly stray 
O'er Cluden's wave with fond delay ; 
Now on the rising gale swell high, 
And now in fainting murmurs die : 
The boatmen on Nith's gentle stream, 
That glistens in the pale moon's beam, 
Suspend their dashing oars to hear 
The holy anthem, loud and clear; 
Each worldly thought awhile forbear, 
And mutter forth a half-formed prayer. 
But as I gaze, the vision fails, 
Like frost-work touch 'd by southern gales ; 
The altar sinks, the tapers fade, 
And all the splendid scene's decay'd. 
In window fair the painted pane 
No longer glows with holy stain, 
But, through the broken glass, the galo 
Blows chilly from the misty vale. 
The bird of eve flits sullen by, 
Her home, these aisles and arches high : 
The choral hymn, that erst so clear 
Broke softly sweet on Fancy's ear, 
Is drowned amid the mournful scream, 
That breaks the magic of my dream : 
Roused by the sound, I start and see 
The ruin'd, sad reality. 



VERSES ADDRESSED TO J. RANKINE. 

I am a keeper of the law 

In some sma' points, although not a', 

Some people tell me gin I fa', 11 

Ae way or ither, cne, other 

The breaking of ae point, tho' sma', 

Breaks a' thegither. together 



burns' poems. ies 



A WINTER NIGHT. 

Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are, 
That bide the pelting of the pitiless storm! 
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, 
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you 
From seasons such as these*— Shakspeare. 

When biting Boreas, fell and doure, keen, sullen 

Sharp shivers through the leafless bower ; 

When Phoebus gies a short-lived glower stare 

Far south the lift, sky 

Dim-darkening through the flaky shower, 

Or whirling drift : 

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked, one 

Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked, 

While burns, wi' snawy wreathes up-choked, rivulets 

Wild eddying swirl, 
Or, through the mining outlet bocked, vomited 

Down headlong hurl. 

Listening, the doors and winnocks rattle, windows 

I thought me on the ourie cattle, drooping 

Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle rattle 

O' winter war, 
And through the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle, wading, scram- 
Beneath a scaur. cliff [ble 

Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing, each hopping 

That, in the merry months o' spring, 
Delighted me to hear thee sing, 

W T hat comes o' thee ? 
Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing, shivering 

And close thy ee ? eye 

Even you, on murdering errands toiled, 

Lone from your savage homes exiled, 

The blood-stained roost, and sheep-cot spoiled, 

My heart forgets 
While pitiless the tempest wild 

Sore on you beats. 

Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign, 
Dark muffled, viewed the dreary plain ; 
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train, 

Rose in my soul, 
When on my ear this plaintive strain 

Slow, solemn, stole : — 

u Blow, blow ye winds with heavier gust 1 
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost ! 
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows I 
Not all your rage, as now united, shows 
More hard unkindness, unrelenting, 
Vengeful malice unrepenting, 
Than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows 



" See stern Oppression's iron grip, 
Or mad Ambition's gory hand, 



JC4 BURNS' POEMS. 



Sending, like bloodhounds from the slip, 

Woe, want, and murder o'er a land ! 
E'en in the peaceful rural vale, 
Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, 
How pampered Luxury, Flattery by her side, 
The parasite empoisoning her ear, 
With all the servile wretches in the rear, 
Looks o'er proud Property, extended wide ; 
And eyes the simple rustic hind, 

Whose toil upholds the glittering show, 
A creature of another kind, 
Some coarser substance, unrefined, 
Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile belov? 

" Where, where is love's fond, tender throe, 
With lordly Honour's lofty brow, 
The powers you proudly own ? 
Is there, beneath Love's noble name, 
Can harbour dark the selfish aim, 
• To bless himself alone ! 
Mark maiden innocence a prey 

To love pretending snares, 
This boasted Honour turns away, 
Shunning soft Pity's rising sway, 
Regardless of the tears and unavailing prayers ! 
Perhaps this hour, in Misery's squalid nest, 
She strains your infant to her joyless breast, 
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking bias' 

" Oh ye who, sunk in beds of down, 
Feel not a want but what yourselves create, 
Think for a moment on his wretched fate, 
Whom friends and fortune quite disown ! 
Ill satisfied keen Nature's clamorous call, 

Stretched on his straw he lays himself to sleep, 
While through the ragged roof and chinky wall, 
Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap ! 

Think on the dungeon's grim confine, 

Where Guilt and poor Misfortune pine, 

Guilt, erring man, relenting view ! 

But shall thy legal rage pursue 

The wretch already crushed low 

By cruel Fortune's undeserved blow ? 
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress ; 
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss I" 

I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer nomoie 

Shook off the pouthery snaw, powdery, sno-w 

And hailed the morning with a cheer, 
A cottage-rousing craw. 

But deep this truth impressed my mind — 

Through all his works abroad, 
The heart benevolent and kind 

The most resembles God. 



BURN>' POEMS. 



GRACES BEFORE MEAT. 

Some hae meat and carina eat, 
And some would eat that want it ; 

But we hae meat and we can eat, 
Sae let the Lord be thankit. 



IS5 



have, cannot 



O Thou, who kindly dost provide 

For every creature's want ! 
"VVe bless Thee, God of Nature wide, 

For all thy goodness lent : 
And, if it please Thee, heavenly guide, 

May never worse be sent ; 
But whether granted or denied, 

Lord, bless us with content ! Amen / 



O Thou, in whom we live and move, 

Who mad'st the sea and shore ; 
Thy goodness constantly we prove, 

And grateful would adore. 
And if it please Thee, Power above, 

Still grant us, with such store, 
The friend we trust, the fair we love, 

And we desire no more. 



WILLIE STEWART. 

You're welcome, Willie Stewart ; 

You're welcome, "Willie Stewart ; 
There's ne'er a flower that blooms in May, 

That's half sae welcome's thou art. 

Come, bumpers high, express your joy, 

The bowl we maun renew it ; 
The tappit-hen, gae bring her ben, 

To welcome Willie Stewart. 

May foes be Strang, and friends be slack, 

Ilk action may he rue it ; 
May woman on him turn her back. 

That wrangs thee, Willie Stewart ! 



must 
tin-quart, go, in 



strong 
each 



wrongs 



VERSES TO JOHN M-'MURDO, ESQ.: 

WITH A PRESENT OF BOOKS. 

Oh, could I give thee India's wealth, 

As I this trifle send, 
Because thy joy in both would be 

To share them with a friend 1 



19 G BURNS' POEMS. 

But golden sands did never grace 
The Heliconean stream ; 

Then take what gold could never buy- 
An honest Bard's esteem. 



TO MISS JESSY LEWARS : 

WITH A PRESENT OF BOOKS. 

Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair, 
And with them take the Poet's prayer- 
That Fate may in her fairest page, 
With every kindliest, best presage 
Of future bliss, enrol thy name : 
With native worth, and spotless fame, 
And wakeful caution still aware 
Of ill — but chief, man's felon snare ; 
All blameless joys on earth we find, 
And all the treasures of the mind — 
These be thy guardian and reward ; 
So prays thy faithful friend, the Bard. 



ON SEEING MRS KEMBLE IN YARIOO. 

Kemble, thou cur'st my unbelief 

Of Moses and his rod ; 
At Yarico's sweet notes of grief 

The rock with tears had flowed. 



TO MR SYME : 

WITH A PRESENT OF A DOZEN OF PORTER. 

Oh, had the malt thy strength of mind, 
Or hops the flavour of thy wit, 

'Twere drink for first of human kind, 
A gift that even for Syme were fit. 



TO THE SAME, 

ON BEING PRESSED TO STAY AND DRINK MORE. 

There's Death in the cup, sae beware — so 

Nay, mair, there is danger in touching ; mora 

But wha can avoid the fell snare ? vhe 
The man and his wine's sae bewitching. 



BURNS' POEMS. 197 



TO THE SAME, 

DECLINING AN INVITATION TO JOIN A DINNER PARTY. 

No more of your guests, be they titled or not, 
And cookery the first in the nation ; 

Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit, 
Is proof to all other temptation. 



ON JOHN DOVE, 

INNKEEPER, MAUCHLINE* 

Here lies Johnny Pigeon ; 
What was his religion ? 

Wha e'er desires to ken, 
To some other warF woild 

Maun follow the carl, musi folio* 

For here Johnny Pigeon had nane I 

Strong ale was ablution — 
Small beer persecution, 

A dram was memento mori ,• 
But a full-flowing bowl 
Was the joy of his soul, 

And port was celestial glory. 



ON MISS LEWARS' INDISPOSITION. 

Say, sages, what's the charm on earth 
Can turn Death's dart aside ? 

It is not purity and worth, 
Else Jessy had not died. 



MISS LEWARS RECOVERED A LITTLE 

But rarely seen since Nature's birth, 

The natives of the sky ; 
Yet still one seraph's left on earth. 

For Jessy did not die. 



EPITAPH FOR ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ. 

Know thou, stranger to the Fame 
Of this much-lored, much-honoured name ! 
,For none that knew him need be told) 
A warmer heart death ne'er made cold. . 



198 BURNS' POEMS. 



ON WEE JOHNNY. 

Hie jacet wee Johnny. 

Whoe'er thou art, O reader, know 

That death has murdered Johnny ! 
And here his body lies fu' low — 

For saul he ne'er had ony. soul 



ON THE DEATH OF A HENPECKED COUNTRY 
SQUIRE. 

One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell, 
When deprived of her husband she loved so well, 
In respect for the love and affection he showed her, 
She reduced him to dust, and she drank off the powder. 

But Queen Netherplaee, of a different complexion, 
When called on to order the funeral direction, 
Would have ate her dead lord, on a slender pretence, 
Not to shew her respect, but — to save the expense I 



TAM THE CHAPMAN. 

As Tarn the Chapman on a day 

Wi' Death forgathered by the way, met 

Weel pleased, he greets a wight sae famous, well, so 

And Death was nae less pleased wi' Thamas, no 

Wha cheerfully lays down his pack, who 

And there blaws up a hearty crack ; blows 

His social, friendly, honest heart 

Sae tickled Death, they couldna part : 

Sae, after viewing knives and garters, 

Death taks him hame to gie him quarters. home, give 



ON MISS J. SCOTT, OF AYR. 

Oh, had each Scot of ancient times, 
Been Jeany Scott, as thoi- art ; 
The bravest heart on English ground, 
Had yielded like a coward. 



ON A WORM-EATEN EDITION OF SHAKSPEARE 
IN A NOBLEMAN'S LIBRARY. 

Through and through th' inspired leaves, 
Ye maggots, make your windings ; 

But oh 1 respect his lordship's taste, 
And spare the golden bindings. 



burns' poems. 


) »g 


ON MR W. CRUIKSHANK, 




OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH. 




Honest Will to heaven is gane, 
And mony shall lament him ; 

His faults they a* in Latin lay, 
In English nane e'er kent them. 


gone 
many 

none, knew . 


ON MISS BURNS. 




Cease, ye prudes, your envious railings, 
Lovely Burns has charms, confess : 

True it is, she had one failing — 
Had a woman ever less ? 




WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH. 




A cauld, cauld day December blew. 
A cauld, cauld kirk, and in't but few ; 
A caulder minister never spak, 


cold 


Ye'se warmer be ere I come back. 




ON A FRIEND. 




An honest man here lies at rest 
As e'er God with his image blest 1 
The friend of man, the friend of truth ; 
The friend of age, and guide of youth ; 




Few hearts like his, with virtue warmed. 
Few heads with knowledge so informed : 
If there's another world, he lives in bliss ; 
If there is none, he made the best of this. 









HOWLET FACE. 




How daur ye ca' me howlet-faced. 

Ye ugly, glowering spectre ? 
My face was but the keekin' glass, 

An' there ye saw your picture. 


dare, owl 
staring 
looking 



burns' poems. 



THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 

The Solemn League and Covenant 

Cost Scotland blood— cost Scotland tears; 

But it sealed freedom's sacred cause — 
If thou'rt a slave, indulge thy sneers. 



ON A CERTAIN PARSON'S LOOKS. 

That there is falsehood in hi3 looks 

I must and will deny ; 
They say their master is a knave — 

And sure they do not lie. 



ON MR M'MURDO. 

INSCRIBED ON A PANE OF GLASS IN HIS HOUSE. 

Blest be M'Murdo to his latest day 
No envious cloud o'ercast his evening ray ; 
No wrinkle furrowed by the hand of care, 
Nor ever sorrow add one silver hair ! 
Oh, may no son the father's honour stain, 
Nor ever daughter give the mother pain 1 



WRITTEN ON A WINDOW OF THE GLOBE TAVERN 
DUMFRIES. 

The graybeard, old Wisdom, may boast of his treasures, 

Give me with gay Folly to live ; 
I grant him his calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures, 

But Folly has raptures to give. 



EXCISEMEN UNIVERSAL. 

WRITTEN ON A WINDOW IN THE KING'S ARMS, DUMFRIES. 

Ye men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering 

'Gainst poor excisemen ? give the cause a hearing. 

What are your landlords' rent-rolls ? teasing ledgers : 

What premiers — what? even monarchs' mighty gaugers: excisemen 

Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wise men ? 

What are they, pray, but spiritual excisemen ? 



BURNS POEM?. 201 



ON A GROTTO IN FRIARS' CARSE GROUNDS. 

To Riddel, much-lamented man, 

This ivied cot "was dear ; 
Reader, dost value matchless worth ? 

This ivied cot revere. 



ON A NOTED COXCOMB. 

Light lay the earth on Billy's breast, 
His chicken heart's so tender ; 

But build a castle on his head, 
His skull will prop it under. 



ON A PERSON 

BOEING A COMPANY WITH REFERENCES TO THE MANY GREAf 

PEOPLE HE HAD BEEN VISITING. 

No more of your titled acquaintances boast, 
And in what lordly circles you've been : 

An insect is still but an insect at most, 
Though it crawl on the head of a queen. 



ON SEEING THE BEAUTIFUL SEAT OF THE 
EARL OF GALLOWAY. 

What dost thou in that mansion fair ? — 

Flit, Galloway, and find 
Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave, 

The picture of thy mind ! 



ON THE SAME 

No Stewart art thou, Galloway, 
The Stewarts all were brave ; 

Besides, the Stewarts were but fools. 
Not one of them a knave. 

Bright ran thy line, Galloway, 
Thro'ugh many a far-famed sire ! 

So ran the far-famed Roman way, 
So ended in a mire. 



r 



202 burns' poems. 



TO THE SAME, 

ON THE AUTHOR BEING THREATENED WITH HIS RESENT MEM 

Spare me thy vengeance, Galloway ; 

In quiet let me live : 
I ask no kindness at thy hand, 

For thou hast none to give. 



TO MISS JESSY LEWARS: 

ON A MENAGERIE OF WILD BEASTS. 

Talk not to me of savages 

From Afric's burning sun ; 
No savage e'er could rend my heart. 

As, Jessy, thou hast done. 
But Jessy's lovely hand in mine, 

A mutual faith to plight, 
Not even to view the heavenly choi? 

Would be so blest a sight. 



TOAST, 
WRITTEN ON A CRYSTAL GOBLBT* 

Fill me with the rosy wine, 
Call a toast — a toast divine ; 
Give the poet's darling flame. 
Lovely Jessy be the name ; 
Then thou mayest freely boast 
Thou ha^t given a peerless toast. 



SONGS- 



HANDSOME NELL. 
Trans — / am a man unmarried 

Dh onoe I loved a bonnie lass, 

Ay, and I love her still ; 
And whilst that honour warms my breast, 

I'll love my handsome Nell. 

As bonnie lasses I hae seen, 

And mony full as braw ; 
But for a modest, gracefu* mein, 

The like I never saw. 

A bonnie lass, I will confess, 

Is pleasant to the ee, 
But without some better qualities, 

She's no the lass for mo. 

But Nelly's looks are blithe and sweet, 

And, what is best of a', 
Her reputation is complete, 

And fair without a flaw. 

She dresses aye sae clean and neat. 

Both decent and genteel : 
And then there's something in her gait 

Gars ony dress look weel. 

A gaudy dress and gentle air 
May slightly toueh the heart ; 

But it's innocence and modesty 
That polishes the dart. 

'Tis this in Nelly pleases me, 

'Tis this enchants my soul ; 
For absolutely in my breast 

She reigns without control. 



yes 



hava 
veil dressed 



makes asj 



2C4 



burns' songs. 



I DREAMED I LAY. 

1 dreamed I lay where flowers were springing 

Gaily in the sunny beam ; 
Listening to the wild birds singing, 

By a falling, crystal stroam : 
Straight the sky grew black and daring ; 

Through the woods the whirlwinds rare ; 
Trees with aged arms were warring, 

O'er the swelling drumlie wave. 

Such was my life's deceitful morning, 

Such the pleasure I enjoyed ; 
But lang or noon, loud tempests storming, 

A' my flowery bliss destroyed. 
Though fickle fortune has deceived me, 

She promised fair, and performed but ill ; 
Of mony a joy and hope bereaved me, 

I bear a heart shali support me still. 



troubled 



long ere 



many 



MY NANIE, O. 
Tune — My Nanie, 0. 

Behind yon hills where Lugar flows, 

'Mang moors and mosses many, 0, among 

The wintry sun the day has closed, 

And I'll awa to Nanie, 0. away 

The westlin wind blaws loud and shill ; westerly, blows, shrill 
The night's baith mirk and rainy, ; both dark 

But I'll get ray plaid, and out I'll steal> 
And owre the hills to Nanie, O. over 

My Name's charming, sweet, and young ; 

Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O : no 

May ill befa* the flattering tongue 

That wad beguile my Nanie, O I would 

Her face is fair, her heart is true, 

As spotless as she's bonnie, : 
The opening gowan, wet wi' dew, 

Nae purer is than Nanie. 0. 

A country lad is my degree, 

And few there be that ken me, ; 
But what care I how few they be ? 

I'm welcome aye to Nanie, O. 

My riches a's my penny-fee, 

And I maun guide it cannie, ; 
But warl's gear ne'er troubles me, 

My thoughts are a'— my Nanie, O. 



daisy 



know 



all Is, wages 
must, carefully 
world's wealth 



BURNS SONGS. 



205 



Our auld guidman delights to view old goodman 

His sheep and kye thrive bonnie, O ; cows 

But I'm as blithe that hauds his pleugh, holds, plough 
And has nae care but Nanie, O. 

Come weel, come woe, I care na by, - not although 

I'll tak what Heaven will send me, O ; 
Nae ither care in life have I, other 

But live and love my Nanie, 0. 



TIBBIE, I HAE SEEN THE DAY. 

Tusne — InvercaulcTs Reel 

Oh Tibbie, I hae seen the day have 

Ye wad na been sae shy ; would not 

For lack o' gear ye lightly me, money, slight 

But, trowth, I care na by. indeed, although 

Yestreen I met you on the moor, last night 

Ye spak na, but gaed by like stoure ; spoke, went, dust 

Ye geek at me because I'm poor, mock 
But not a hair care I. 

I doubt na, lass, but ye may think, 

Because ye hae the name o' clink, have, money 

That ye can please me at a wink, 
Whene'er you like to try. 

But sorrow tak him that's sae mean, so 

Although his pouch o' coin were clean, 

Wha follows ony saucy quean, #rho, any wench 



JLiiat iooKs sae prouu auu. uigu. 

Although a lad were e'er sae smart, 
If that he want the yellow dirt, 
Ye'll cast your head another airt, 
And answer him fu' dry. 


direction 


But if he hae the name o' gear, 
Yell fasten to him like a brier, 
Though hardly he, for sense or lear, 
Be better than the kye. 


wealth 

learning 
cows 


But, Tibbie, lass, tak my advice, 
Your daddie's gear mak3 vou sae nice, 


father's 


There's no a ane wad speer your price, 
„ Were ye as poor as I. 


one, ask 


There lives a lass in yonder park, 
I would na gi'e her in her sark, 
For thee, wi' a» thy thousan' mark ; 
Ye need na look sae high. 


give, shift 





106 BLRNS' SONGS. 



ON CESSNOCK BANKS. 

Tunic — If he be a butcher neat and trim. 

On Cessnock Banks there lives a lass ; 

Could I describe her shape and mien, 
The graces of her weel-faured face, *r ell -favoured 

And the glancing of her sparkling een ! eye« 

She's fresher than the morning dawn 

When rising Phoebus first is seen, 
When dewdrops twinkle o'er the lawn ; 

And she's twa glancing sparkling een. two 

She's stately like yon youthful ash, 

That grows the cowslip braes between, hillocks 

And shoots its head above each bush ; 

And she's twa glancing sparkling een. 

She's spotless as the flowering thorn, 
With flowers so white and leaves so green, 

When purest in the dewy morn ; 
And she's twa glancing sparkling een. 

Her looks are like the sportive lamb, 

When flowery May adorns the scene, 
That wantons round its bleating dam ; 

And she's twa glancing sparkling een. 

Her hair is like the curling mist 

That shades the mountain-side at e'en, 
When flower-reviving rains are past ; 

And she's twa glancing sparkling een. 

Her forehead's like the showery bow, 

When shining sunbeams intervene, 
And gild the distant mountain's brow ; 

And she's twa glancing sparkling een. 

Her voice is like the evening thrush 

That sings in Cessnock Banks unseen, 
While his mate sits nestling in the bush ; 

And she's twa glancing sparkling een. 

Her lips are like the cherries ripe 

That sunny walls from Boreas screen— 
They tempt the taste and charm the sight * t 

And she's twa glancing sparkling een. 

Her teeth are like a flock of sheep, 

With fleeces newly washen clean, 
That slowly mount the rising steep ; 

And she's twa glancing sparkling een. 

Her breath is like the fragrant breeze 

That gently stirs the blossomed bean, 
When Phoebus sinks beneath the seas ; 

And she's twa glancing sparkling een. 



BURNS' songs. IfT 



Her cheeks are like yon crimson gem, 
The pride of all the flowery scene, 

Just opening on its thorny stem ; 
And she's twa sparkling rogueish een. 

But it's not her air, her form, her face, 
Though matching beauty's fabled queen, 

But the mind that shines in every grace, 
And chiefly in her sparkling een. 



MY FATHER WAS A FARMER. 

Tune — The Weaver and his Shuttle, 0. 

My father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O, 
And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O ; 
He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a farthing, O ; 
For without an honest manly heart no man was worth regard* 
ing, 0. 

Then out into the world my course I did determine, ; 
Though to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was charm- 
ing, O : 
My talents they were not the worst, nor yet my education, O ; 
Resolved was I, at least to try, to mend my situation, O. 

In many a way, and vain essay, 1 courted Fortune's favour, ; 

Some cause unseen still stept between, to frustrate each en- 
deavour, 0. 

Sometimes by foes I was o'erpowered, sometimes by friends for- 
saken, O ; 

And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst mistaken, 0. 

Then sore harassed, and tired at last, with Fortune's vain delu- 
sion, O, 

I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams, and came to this conclu- 
sion, O— 

The past was bad, and the future hid — its good or ill untried, O ; 

But the present hour was in my power, and so I would enjoy it, 0. 

No help, nor hope, nor view had I, nor person to befriend me, O ; 
So I must toil, and sweat, and broil, and labour to sustain me, O ; 
To plough and sow, to reap, and mow, my father bred me early, ; 
For one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for Fortune fairly, 0. 

Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, through life I'm doomed to 

wander, O, 
Till down my weary bones I lay, in everlasting slumber, 0. 
No view nor care,- but shun whate'er might breed me pain or 
sorrow, ! 
. I live to-day as well's I may, regardless of to-morrow, O. 

But cheerful still I am as well as a monarch in a palace, O, 
Though Fortune's frown still haunts me down with all her wonted 
malice, : 



268 burns' songs. 



I make indeed uiy daily bread, but ne'er can make it farther, 0; 
But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard her, 0. 

When sometimes by my labour I earn a little money, O, 
Some unforseen misfortune comes generally upon me, O : 
Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my good-natured folly, O : 
But come what will, I've sworn it still, I'll ne'er be melancholy, 0. 

All you who follow wealth and power with unremitting ardour, O, 
The more in this you look for bliss, you leave your view the 

farther, O: 
Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, or nations to adore you, O, 
A. cheerful honest-hearted clown I will prefer before you, O. 



JOHN BARLEYCORN. 

A BALLAD. 

There were three kings into the east, 

Three kings both great and high; 
And they hae sworn a solemn oath have 

John Barleycorn should die. 

They took a plough and ploughed him down, 

Put clods upon his head ; 
And they hae sworn a solemn oath 

John Barleycorn was dead. 

But the cheerful Spring came kindly on, 

And showers began to fall ; 
John Barleycorn got up again, 

And sore surprised them all. 

The sultry sons of Summer came, 

And he grew thick and strong ; 
His head weel armed wi' pointed spears, 

That no one should him wrong. 

The sober Autumn entered mild, 

When he grew wan and pale ; 
His bending joints and drooping head 

Showed he began to fail. 

His colour sickened more and more, 

He faded into age ; 
And then his enemies began 

To show their deadly rage. 

They've taen a weapon, long "and sharp, taken 

And cut him by the knee ; 
Then tied him fast upon a cart, 

Like a rogue for forgerie. 

They laid him down upon Ms back, 

And cudgelled toim full sore ; 
They hung him up before the storm, 

And turned him o'er and o'er. 

j 



BUKNS' SONGS. 



They filled up a darksome pit 

With water to the brim ; 
They heaved in John Barleycorn, 

There let him sink or swim. 

They laid him out upon the floor 

To work him farther wo ; 
And still, as signs of life appeared. 

They tossed him to and fro. 

They wasted o'er a scorching flame 

The marrow of his bones ; 
But a miller used him worst of all, 

For he crushed him 'tween two stones. 

And they hae taen his very heart's blood, taken 

And drunk it round and round ; 
And still the more and more they drank, 

Their joy did more abound. 

John Barleycorn was a hero bold, 

Of noble enterprise ; 
For if you do but taste his blood, 

'Twill make your courage rise. * 

'Twill make a man forget his wo; 

'Twill heighten all his joy: 
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing. 

Though the tear were in her eye. 

Then let us toast John Barleycorn, 

Each man a glass in hand ; 
And may his great posterity 

Ne'er fail in old Scotland ! 



MARY MORRISON. 

Oh, Mary, at thy window be, 

It is the wished, the trysted hour ! 
Those smiles and glances let me see, 

That make the miser's treasure poor : 
How blithely wad I bide the stoure, would, dust 

A weary slave frae sun to sun, from 

Could I the rich reward secure, 

The lovely Mary Morrison. 

Yestreen when to the trembling string, last night 

The dance gaed through the lighted ha', went 

To thee my fancy took its wing, 

I sat, but neither heard nor saw. 
Though this was fair, and that was braw, 

And yon the toast of a' the town, 
I sighed, and said amang them a\ 

w Ye are na Mary Morrison." not 



IK 


BURNS" SONGS. 






Oh, Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, 






Wha for thy sake wad gladly die ? 


who, would 




Or canst thou break that heart of his, 






"Whase only faut is loving thee ? 


whose, fault 




If love for love thou wilt na gie, 


give 




At least be pity to me shown ; 






A thought ungentle canna be 


cannot 




The thought o' Mary Morrison. 






THE RIGS 0' BARLEY. 






Tune — Corn Rigs. 






It was upon a Lammas night, 






When corn rigs are bonnie, 


ridges 




Beneath the moon's unclouded light, 






I held awa to Annie : 


away 




The time flew by wi' tentless heed, 


unnoticed 




Till 'tween the late and early, 






Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed 






To see me through the barley. 






The sky was blue, the wind was still, 






The moon was shining clearly : 






1 set her down wi' right good will 






Amang the rigs o' barley ; 


among 




I ken't her heart was a' my ain ; 


huew, own 




1 loved her most sincerely; 






I kissed her owre and- owre again, 


ovei 




Amang the rigs o' barley. 






I locked her in my fond embrace ; 






Her heart was beating rarely : 






My blessings on that happy place, 






Amang the rigs o' barley ! 






But by the moon and stars so bright 






That shone that hour so clearly ! 






She aye shall bless that happy night, 






Amang the rigs o' barley. 






1 hae been blithe wi' comrades dear ; 






1 hae been merry drinkin' ; 






1 hae been joyfu' gath'rin' gear; 


money 




I hae been happy thinkin' : 






But a' the pleasures e'er I saw, 






Though three times doubled fairly, 






That happy night was worth them a', 






Amang the rigs o' barley. 






CHORUS. 






Corn rigs, and barley rigs, 






And corn rigs are bonnie : 






I'll ne'er forget that happy night 






Amang the rigs wi' Annie. 





BURKS' SONGS. . 



211 



MONTGOMERY'S PEGGY. 

Tune— Gala Water. 

Although ray bed were in yon muir 

Amang the heather, in my plaidie, among 

Yet happy, happy would I be, 

Had I my dear Montgomery's Peggy. 

When o'er the hill beat surly storms, 
And winter nights were dark and rainy ; 

I'd seek some dell, and in my arms 
I'd shelter dear Montgomery's Peggy. 

Were I a baron proud and high, 

And horse and servants waiting ready, 
Then a' 'twad gie o' joy to me, twould, give 

The sharin't with Montgomery's Peggy. sharing it 



SONG COMPOSED IN AUGUST. 
Tune—/ had a horse, I had nae mair. 

Now westlin winds and slaught'ring guns western 

Bring Autumn's pleasant weather ; 
The moorcock springs, on whirring wings, 

Amang the blooming heather : among 

Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain, 

Delights the weary farmer ; 
And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night 

To muse upon my charmer. 

• The partridge loves the fruitful fells ; 

The plover loves the mountains ; 
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells ; 

The soaring hern the fountains : heron 

Through lofty groves the cushat roves. wood«pigeoa 

The path of man to shun it ; 
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush, 

The spreading thorn the linnet. 

Thus every kind their pleasure find, 

The savage and the tender ; 
Some social join, and leagues combine ; 

Some solitary wander : 
Avaunt, away 1 the cruel sway, 

Tyrannic man's dominion ; 
The sportsman's joy, the murdering cry, 

The fluttering gory pinion. 

But Peggy, dear, the evening's clear, 

Thick flies the skimming swallow ; 
The sky is blue, the fields in view, 

All fading-green and yellow : 



312 BURNS' SONGS. 



Come, let us stray our gladsome way, 
And view the charms of nature ; 

The rustling corn, the fruited thorn, 
And every happy creature. 

We 11 gently walk, and sweetly talk, 

Till the silent moon shine clearly ; 
I'll grasp thy waist, and fondly prcst, 

Swear how I love thee dearly : 
Not vernal showers to budding flowers, 

Not Autumn to the farmer, 
So dear can be as thou to me, 

My fair, my lovely charmer ! 



GREEN GROW THE RASHES. 
Tune — Green grow the Rashes. 

There's nought but care on every han*, 

In every hour that passes, : 
What signifies the life o' man, 

An 'twere na for the lasses, O. 

chorus. 
Green grow the rashes, O ! ruslies 

Green grow the rashes, O ! 
The sweetest hour that e'er I spend 

Are spent among the lasses, 0. 

The warly race may riches chase, worldly 

And riches still may fly them, O ; 
And though at last they catch them fast, 

Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O. 

But gie me a canny hour at e'en, give, happy 

My arms about my dearie, O ; 
And warly cares, and warly men, 

May a' gae tapsalteerie, O. topsy-turvy 

For you sae douce, ye sneer at this, sc giava 

Ye're nought but senseless asses, : 
The wisest man the warP e'er saw, 

He dearly loved the lasses, O. 

Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears 

Her noblest work she classes, : 
Her 'proatice hand she tried on man, 

And then she made the lasses, O. 



THE CURE FOR ALL CARE. 

Tune— Prepare, my dear Brethren, to the tawrn kt'tjl} 

No churchman am I for to rail and to write, 
No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight, 
No sly man of business contriving a snare — 
For a big-bellied bottle's the whole of my care. 



BURNS* SONGS. 21 S 



The peer 1 don't envy, I give him his bow ; 
I scorn not tlio peasant, though ever so low ; 
But a club of good fellows, like those that are here, 
And a bottle like this, are my glory and care. 

Here passes the squire on his brother — his horse ; 
There centum per centum, the cit with his purse ; 
But see you The Crown, how it waves in the air ! 
There a big-bellied bottle still eases my care. 

The wife of my bosom, alas ! she did die ; 
For sweet consolation to church I did fly ; 
I found that old Solomon proved it fair, 
That a big-bellied bottle's a cure for all care. 

I once was persuaded a venture to make ; 
A letter informed me that all was to wreck ; — 
But the pursy old landlord just waddled up stairs, 
With a glorious bottle that ended my cares. 

' Life's cares, they are comforts" — a maxim laid down 
By the bard, what d'ye call him that wore the black gown ; 
And, faith, I agree with th' old prig to a hair ; 
For a big-bellied bottle's a heaven of care. 

ADDED IN A MASON LODGE. 

Then fill up a bumper, and make it o'erflow, 
And honours masonic prepare for to throw ; 
May every true brother of th' compass and square 
Have a big-bellied bottle when harassed with care. 



FRAGMENT. 

Tuke — John Anderson, my Jo. 

One night as I did wander, 

"When corn begins to shoot, 
I sat me down to ponder, 

Upon an auld tree-root. old 

Auld Ayr ran by before me, 

And bickered to the seas, raced 

A cushat crooded o'er me, wood-pigeon, cooing 

That echoed through the braes. 



ROBIN. 

Tuke — Dainty Davit. 

There was a lad was born in Kyle, 

But whatna day o' whatna style, which 

I doubt it's hardly worth my while 

To be sae nice with Robin. so 

Robin was a rovin' boy, 

Rantin' rovin', rantin' rovin* ; 
Robin was a rovin' boy, 
Rantin' rovin' Robin ! 



114 



BURNS' SONGS. 



Our monarch's hindmost year but ane 
Was five-and-twenty days begun, 
'Twas then a blast o* Janwar' win' 
Blew handsel in on Robin, 

The gossip keekit in his loof, 
Quo' scho, wha lives will see the proof, 
This waly boy will be nae coof ; 
I think we'll ca' him Robin. 

Hell hae misfortunes great and sma , 
But aye a heart aboon them a' ; 
He'll be a credit till us a' — 
We'll a' be proud o' Robin, 

But sure as three times three mak nine, 
I see by ilka score and line, 
This chap will dearly like our kin', 
So leeze me on thee, Robin. 



January 
a gift 

peeped, palm 

she, who 

goodly, no fool 

hare 
above 



every 

fellow 
blessings 



A FRAGMENT. 
Tune — Iliad a horse^ I had nae mair 

When first I came to Stewart Kyle, 

My mind it was na steady, 
Where'er I gaed, where'er I rade, 

A sweetheart still I had aye. 

But when I came roun' by Mauchline toun, 

Not dreadin' anybody, 
My heart was caught before I thought, 

And by a Mauchline lady. 



not 

went, rode 

always 

tow* 



LUCKLESS FORTUNE. 

Oh raging fortune's withering blast 
Has laid my leaf full low, O ! 

Oh raging fortune's withering blast 
Has laid my leaf full low, O \ 

My stem was fair, my bud was green, 
My blossom sweet did blow, O ; 

The dew fell fresh, the sun rose mild, 
And made my branches grow, O. 

But luckless fortune's northern storms 
Laid a' my blossoms low, O, 

But luckless fortune's northern storms 
Laid a' my blossoms low, O. 



THE BRAES O' BALLOCHMYLE * 

The Catrine woods were yellow seen, 
The flowers decayed on Catrine lea, 

• Oompoeed on the amiable and excellent family of Whitefoord's learlnff Bal- 
locfcmyle, when Sir John's misfortunes obliged him to sell the estate.— B. 



burns' songs. 215 



Nae lav'rock sang on hillocls green, lark 

But Nature sickened on the ee. eye 

Through faded groves Maria sang, 

Hersel in beauty's bloom the while, herself 

And aye the wild-wood echoes rang, 

Fareweel the Braes of Ballochmyle ! 

Low in your wintry beds, ye flowers, 

Again ye'll nourish fresh and fair ; 
Ye birdies dumb, in with 'ring bowers, 

Again ye'll charm the vocal air. 
But here, alas ! for me nae mair no more 

Shall birdie charm, or flow'ret smile : 
Fareweel the bonnie banks of Ayr, 

Fareweel, fareweel ! sweet Ballochmyle ! 



I AM A SON OF MARS. 
Tune— Soldiers' Joy. 

I am a son of Mars, who have been in many wars, 
And show my cuts and scars wherever I come ; 
This here was for a wench, and that other in a trench, 
When welcoming the French at the sound of the drum. 
Lai de daudle, &c. 

My 'prenticeship I past where my leader breathed his last. 
When the bloody die was cast on the heights of Abram ; 
I served out my trade when the gallant game was played, 
And the Morro low was laid at the sound of the drum. 
Lai de daudle, &c. 

I lastly was with Curtis, among the floating batteries, 
And there I left for witness, an arm and a limb; 
¥et let my country need me, with Elliot to head me, 
I'd clatter on my stumps at the sound of a drum. 
Lai de daudle, &c. 

And now though I must beg with a wooden arm and leg, 
And many a tatter'd rag hanging over my bum, 
I'm as happy with my wallet, my bottle and my callet, 
As when I used in scarlet to follow a drum. 
Lai de daudle, &c. 



JOHN HIGHLANDMAN. 

Tune — an ye were dead Guidman. 

A Highland lad my love was born, 

The Lawland laws he held in scorn, lowland 

But he still was faithfu' to his clan, 

My gallant braw John Highlandman. 

CHORUS. 
Sing, hey my braw John Highlandman ! 
Sing, ho my braw John Highlandman ! 



116 



BURNS' SONGS. 



There's not a lad in a* the Ian' 

Was match for my John Highlandman. 



With his philabeg and tartan plaid, kilt 

And guid claymore down by his side, good broad-sword 

The ladies' hearts he did trepan, 
My gallant braw John Highlandman. 
Sing, hey, &c. 

We ranged a* from Tweed to Spey, 
And lived like lords and ladies gay ; 
For a Lawland face he feared none, 
My gallant braw Joh n Highlandman 
Sing, hey, &c. 

They banished him beyond the sea, 
But ere the bud was on the tree, 
Adown my cheeks the pearls ran, 
Embracing my John Highlandman, 
Sing, hey, &o. 

But, oh ! they catched him at the last, 
And bound him in a dungeon fast ; 
My ban upon them every one, 
They've hanged my braw John Highlandman. 
Sing, hey, &c. 

And now a widow, I must mourn 
The pleasures that will ne'er return ; 
No comfort but a hearty can, 
When I think on John Highlandman. 
Sing, hey, &c. 



I AM A FIDDLER. 
Tone — Whistle o'er the lave o't. 

Let me ryke up to dight that tear, 
And go wi' me and be my dear, 
And then your everj r care and fear 
May whistle owre the lave o't. 

CHORUS. 

I am a fiddler to my trade, 
And a* the tunes that e'er I played, 
The sweetest still to wife or maid, 
Was whistle o'er the lave o't. 



reach, wipe 



over, res D 



At kirns and weddings we'se be there, 

And oh 1 sae nicely's we will fare ; 

We'll bouse about till Daddy Care 

Sings whistle o'er the lave o't. 

I am, &c. 

Sae merrily the banes well pyke, 
And sun oursels about the dike, 
And at our leisure, when ye like, 
We'll whistle owre the lave o't, 
I am, &c. 



harvest homes, we'll 

so 

drink 



bones, pick 



BURNS' songs. 


217 


But bless ine wi' your heaven o' charms, 




And while I kittle hair on thairms, scrape on fiddle 


Hunger, cauld, and a' sic harms, 


cold, such 


May whistle o'er the lave o't. 




I am, &c. 




I'VE TA'EN THE GOLD. 


Tone — Clout the Caudron. 




My bonny lass, I work in brass, 




A tinkler is my station : 


tinker 


I've travelled round all Christian ground 




In this my occupation : 




I've ta'en the gold, I've been enrolled 




In many a noble squadron : 




But vain they searched, when off I marched 




To go and clout the caudron. 


patch 


I've ta'en the gold, &c. 




Despise that shrimp, that withered imp, 




Wi' a his noise and cap'rin', 




And tak a share wi' those that bear 




The budget and the apron. 




And by that stoup, my faith and houp, 


flagon, hope 


And by that dear Kilbagie, 


whisky 


If e'er you want, or meet wi' scant, 




May I ne'er weet my craigie. 


throat 


And by that stoup, &o. 




I AM A BARD. 


Tune — For o' that> and a' that. 




1 am a bard of no regard 




"Wi' gentle folks, and a' that ; 




But Homer-like, the glowrin' byke, staring multitude 


Frae town to town I draw that. 


from 


CHORUS. 




For a' that, and a' that, 




And twice as muckle's a' that, 


much 


I've lost but ane, I've twa behin, 


one, two 


I've wife eneugh for a' that. 


enough 


I never drank the Muse's stank, 


pool 


Castalia's burn and a' that ; 




But there it streams, and richly reams, 




My Helicon I ca' that, 




For a' that, &c. 




Great love I bear to a' the fair, 




Their humble slave and a' that ; 




But lordly will, I hold it still 




A mortal sin to thraw that. 


oppose 


For a' that, &c. 




Their tricks and craft have put me daft, 


stupid 


They've ta'en me in, and a' that ; 





?18 BURNS' SONGS. 



But clear your decks, and here's the sex ; 

I like the j ads for a' that. jades 

CHORUS. 

For a* that, and a' that, 

And twice as muckle's a' that ; 
My dearest bluid, to do them guid, Wood, good 

They're welcome till't for a' that 



YOUNG PEGGY. 
Tune — Last time I came o'er (he muir. 

Young Peggy blooms our bonniest lass 

Her blush is like the morning, 
The rosy dawn, the springing grass, 

With early gems adorning : 
Her eyes outshine the radiant beam. 

That gild the passing shower, 
And glitter o'er the crystal streams, 

And cheer each freshening flower. 

Her lips, more than the cherries brigho. 

A richer dye has graced them ; 
They charm th admiring gazer's sight, 

And sweetly tempt to taste them : 
Her smile is, as the evening, mild, 

When feathered tribes are courting, 
And little lambkins wanton wild M 

In playful bands disporting. 

Were Fortune lovely Peggy's foe, 

Such sweetness would relent her, 
As blooming Spring unbends the brow 

Of surly, savage Winter. 
Detraction's eye no aim can gain, 

Her winning powers to lessen ; 
And fretful envy grins in vain 

The poisoned tooth to fasten. 

Ye powers of honour, love, and truth, 

From every ill defend her ; 
Inspire the highly-favoured youth 

The destinies intend her : 
Still fan the sweet connubial flame 

Responsive in each bosom, 
And bless the dear parental name 

With many a filial blossom. 



SONG. 

Again rejoicing Nature sees 
Her robe assume its vernal hues ; 

Her leafy leeks wave in the breeze, 
All freshly steeped in morning dews 





burns' SONGS. 


219 




In vain to me the cowslips blaw, 

In vain to me the violets spring; 
In vain to me, in glen or shaw, 
. The mavis and the lintwhite sing. 

The merry ploughboy cheers his team, 
Wi' joy the tentie seedsman stalks ; 

But life to me's a weary dream, 
A dream of ane that never wanks. 


blow 

wooc 
thrush, linn el 

heedful 
one, wakes 



The wanton coot the water skims, 
Amang the reeds the ducklings cry, 

The stately swan majestic swims, 
And everything is blest but I. 

The shepherd steeks his faulding slap. 
And owre the moorland whistles shrill ; 

Wi' wild, unequal, wandering step, 
I meet him on the dewy hill. 

And when the lark, 'tween light and dark, 
Blithe waukens by the daisy's side, 

And mounts and sings on flittering wings, 
A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide. 

Come, "Winter, with thine angry howl, 
And raging bend the naked tree : 

Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul, 
When Nature all is sad like me ! 



[in fold 
closes, opening 



awakes 



ghost 



THE HIGHLAND LASSIE. 

Nae gentle dames, though e'er sae fair, 
Shall ever be my Muse's care : 
Their titles a' are empty show ; 
Gie me my Highland lassie, 0. 

Within the glen sae bushy, O, 
Aboon the plains sae rushy, O, 
I set me down wi' right good-will, 
To sing my Highland lassie, O. 

Oh were yon hills and valleys mine, 
Yon palace and yon gardens fine ! 
The world then the love should know 
I bear my Highland lassie, O. 

But fickle fortune frowns on me, 
And I maun cross the raging sea ; 
But while my crimson currents flow, 
I'll love my Highland lassie, O. 

Although through foreign climes I range, 
I know her heart will never change, 
For her bosom burns with honour's glow, 
My faithful Highland lassie, O. 



no. highborn 



give 



above 



•nust 



220 BURNS' SONGS. 



For her I'll dare the billows' roar, 
For her I'll trace a distant shore, 
That Indian wealth may lustre throw 
Around my Highland lassie, O. 

She has my heart, she has my hand, 
By sacred truth and honour's band 1 
'Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low, 
I'm thine, my Highland lassie, O. 

Farewell the glen sae bushy, O I 
Farewell the plain sae rushy, O ! 
To other lands I now must go, 
To sing my Highland lassie, O 



MARY. 

Powers celestial I whose protection 

Ever guards the virtuous fair, 
While in distant climes I wander, 

Let my Mary be your care : 
Let her form sae fair and faultless, 

Fair and faultless as your own, 
Let my Mary's kindred spirit 

Draw your choicest influence down. 

Make the gales you waft around her 

Soft and peaceful as her breast ; 
Breathing in the breeze that fans her, 

Soothe her bosom into rest : 
Guardian angels ! oh protect her 

When in distant lands I roam ; 
To realms unknown while fate exiles me, 

Make her bosom still my home. 



WILL YE GO TO THE INDIES, MY MARY f 

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 
- And leave auld Scotia's shore ? oH 

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 
Across the Atlantic's roar ? 

Oh sweet grow the lime and the orange, 

And the apple on the pine ; 
But a' the charms o' the Indies all 

Can never equal thine. 

I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary, have 

I hae sworn by the Heavens to be true ; 

And sae may the Heavens forget me s 

When I forget my vow 1 



burns' SONGS. ?21 



Oh plight me jour faith, my Mary, 
And plight me your lily-white hand ; 

Oh plight me your faith, my Mary, 
Before I leave Scotia's strand. 

We hae plighted our troth, my Mary, 

In mutual affection to join ; 
And curst be the cause that shall part us ! 

The hour and the moment o' time I 



ELIZA. 
Tu>-e — Gilderoy. 

From thee, Eliza, I must go, 

And from my native shore : 
The cruel fates between us throw 

A boundless ocean's roar ; 
But boundless ocean3, roaring wide 

Between my love and me, 
They never, never can divide 

My heart and soul from thee. 

Farewell, farewell, Eliza dear, 

The maid that I adore ! 
A boding voice is in my ear, 

We part to meet no more ! 
But the last throb that leaves my heart, 

While death stands victor by, 
That throb, Eliza, is thy part, 

And thine that latest sigh ! 



THOUGH CRUEL FATE. 

Tcxe— The Northern Lass. 

Though cruel fate should bid us part, 

Far as the pole and line ; 
Her dear idea round my heart 

Should tenderly entwine. 

Though mountains rise, and deserts howl, 

And oceans roar between, 
Yet dearer than my deathless soul, 

I still would love my Jean. 



FAREWELL TO THE BRETHREN OF ST JAMES'S 

LODGE > TORBOLTON. 

Tuse — Good-night, and joy be tcV you a\ 

Adieu ! a heart-warm, fond adieu ! 

Dear brothers of the mystic tie / 
Ye favoured, ye enlightened few, 

Companions of my social joy ; 



222 BURNS' SONGS. 



Tkough I to foreign lands must hie, 

Pursuing Fortune's slidd'ry ba', slippery ball 

With melting heart, and brimful eye 

I'll mind you still, though far awa. 

Oft have I met your social band, 

And spent the cheerful, festive night ; 
Oft, honoured with supreme command, 

Presided o'er the Sons of Light : 
And by that hieroglyphic bright 

Which none but Craftsman ever saw 
Strong Memory on my heart shall write 

Those happy scenes when far awa. 

May Freedom, Harmony, and Love, 

Unite you in the grand design. 
Beneath the Omniscient Eye above, 

The glorious Architect Divine ! 
That you may keep th' unerring line, 

Still rising by the plummet's law, 
Till Order bright completely shine, 

Shall be my prayer when far awa. 

And you, farewell ! whose merits claiiu, 

Justly, that highest badge to wear ! 
Heaven bless your honoured, noble name, 

To masonry and Scotia dear ! 
A last request permit me here, 

When yearly ye assemble a', 
One round — I ask it with a tear — 

To him, the Bard that's far awa. 



THE SONS OF OLD KILLTE. 
Tune — Shawriboy. 

Ye sons of old F illie, assembled by Willie, 

To follow the noble vocation ; 
Your thrifty old mo her has scarce such another 

To sit in that honoured station. 
I've little to say, but only to pray, 

As praying's the ton of your fashion ; 
A prayer from the Muse you well may excuse, 

'Tis seldom her favourite passion. 

Ye powers who preside o'er the wind and the tide, 

Who marked each element's border ; 
Who formed this frame with beneficent aim, 

Whose sovereign statute is order ; 
Within this dear mansion may wayward contention 

Or withered envy ne'er enter ; 
May secrecy round be the mystical bound, 

And brotherly love be the centre. 



BURNS' SONGS. 223 



THE BONNIE LASS 0' BALLOCHMYLE. 

Twas even — the dewy fields were green, 

On every blade the pearls hang I 
The Zephyr wantoned round the bean, 

And bore its fragrant sweets alang ; . along 

In every glen the mavis sang, thrash 

All Nature listening seemed the while, 
Except where greenwood echoes rang, 

Amang the braes o' Ballochmyle. 

With careless step I onward strayed, 

My heart rejoiced in Nature's joy, 
When, musing in a lonely glade, 

A maiden fair I chanced to spy ; 
Her look was like the morning's eye, 

Her air like Nature's vernal smile, 
Perfection whispered passing by, 

Behold the lass o' Ballochmyle ! 

Fair is the morn in flowery May, 

And sweet is night in Autumn mild ; 
When roving through the garden gay, 

Or wandering in the lonely wild : 
But woman, Nature's darling child ! 

There all her charms she does compile , 
Even there her other works are foiled 

By the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle. 

Oh had she been a country maid, 

And I the happy country swain ! 
Though sheltered in the lowest shed 

That ever rose on Scotland's plain, 
Through weary Winter's wind and rain, 

With joy, with rapture, I would toil ; 
And nightly to my bosom strain 

The bonny lass o' Ballochmyle. 

Then pride might climb the slippery steep, 

Where fame and honours lofty shine ; 
And thirst of gold might tempt the deep 

Or downward seek the Indian mine ; 
Give me the cot below the pine, 

To tend the flocks, or till the soil, 
And every day have joys divine 
* With the bonny lass o' Ballochmyle. 



THE GLOOMY NIGHT IS GATHERING FAST. 
Tune. — Roslin Castle. 

The gloomy night is gathering fast, 
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast ; 
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain, 
I see it driving o'er the plain ; 



25 i BURNS SONGS. 



The hunter now has left the moor, 
The scattered coveys meet secure 
While here I wander, pressed with care, 
Along the lonely banks of Ayr. 

The Autumn mourns her ripening corn, 
By early Winter's ravage torn ; 
Across her placid, azure sky, 
She sees the scowling tempest fly ; 
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave — 
I think upon the stormy wave, 
Where many a danger I must dare, 
Far from the bonny banks of Ayr. 

'Tis not the surging billow's roar, 
'Tis not that fatal deadly shore ; 
Though death in every shape appear, 
The wretched have no more to fear ! 
But round my heart the ties are bound, 
That heart transpierced with many a wound ; 
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear, 
To leave the bonny banks of Ayr. 

Farewell old Coila's hilis and dales, 
Her heathy moors and winding vales ; 
The scenes where wretched fancy roves, 
Pursuing past, unhappy loves ! 
Farewell, my friends ! farewell, my foes 
My peace with these, my love with those — 
The bursting tears my heart declare ; 
Farewell the bonny banks of Ayr ! 



THE AMERICAN WAR : 

A POLITICAL BALLAD. 
T [JNE — Killiecrankie. 

When Guildford good our pilot stood, 

And did our helm thraw, man, turn 

Ae night, at tea, began a plea, one 

Within America, man : 
Then up they gat the maskin'-pat, got, infusing-pot 

And in the sea did jaw, man ; dash 

And did nae less, in full Congress, no 

Than quite refuse our law, man. « 

Then through the lakes Montgomery takes, 

I wat he was na slaw, man ; know, not slow 

Down Lowrie's burn he took a turn, 

And Carleton did ea', man ; 
But yet, what-reck, he, at Quebec, 

Montgomery-like did fa', man, 1 fall 

Wi' sword in hand, before his band, 

Amang his en'mies a', man. among 



BURNS' SONGS. 


226 


Poor Taramy Gage, within a cage, 




Was kept at Boston ha', man ; 


hall 


Till Willie Howe took o'er the knowe 


knoll 


For Philadelphia, man ; 




Wi' sword and gun he thought a sin 




Guid Christian blood to draw, man : 


good 


But at New York, wi' knife and fork, 




Sir-loin he hacked sina', man. 


small 


Burgoyne gaed up, like spur and whip, 


went 


Till Fraser brave did fa', man ; 




Then lost his way, ae misty day, 




In Saratoga shaw, man. 


wood 


Cornwallis fought as lang's he dough t, 


was able 


And did the buckskins claw, man; 


scratch 


But Clinton's glaive frae rust to save, 


sword from 


He hung it to the wa', man. 


wall 


Then Montague, and Guildford too, 




Began to fear a fa', man ; 




And Sackvilie dour,wha stood the stoure, obdurate, who, dust 


The German Chief to thraw, man : 


thwart 


For Paddy Burke, like ony Turk, 


any 


Nae mercy had at a', man ; 


all 


And Charlie Fox threw by the box, 




And lows'd his tinkler jaw, man. loosed, tinker tongue 


Then Rockingham took up the game 




Till death did on him ca', man ; 


call 


When Shelburne meek held up his cheek, 




Conform to gospel law, man ; 




Saint Stephen's boys, wi' jarring noise, 




They did his measures thraw, man, 


thwart 


For North and Fox united stocks, 




And bore him to the wa', man. 




Then clubs and hearts were Charlie's cartes, 


cards 


He swept the stakes awa', man, 




Till the diamond's ace, of Indian race, 




Led him a sair false step, man ; 


sore 


The Saxon lads, wi' loud placads, 


cheers 


On Chatham's boy did ca', man ; 




And Scotland drew her pipe, and blew, 




" Up, Willie, waur them a , man !* 


overcome 


Behind the throne then Grenville's gone, 




A secret word or twa, man; 


two 


While slee Dundas aroused the class, 


sly 


Be-north the Roman wa', man : 




And Chatham's wraith, in heavenly graith, 


ghost, armour 


(Inspired Bardies saw, man) 




Wi' kindling eyes cried, " Willie, rise ! 




Would I hae fear'd them a', man ?" 


have 


But, word and blow, North, Fox, and Co., 




GowfFd Willie like a ba', man, 


struck, ball 



tU BURNS* SONGS. 


Till Suthron raise, and coost their claiso threw off, clothes 
Behind him in a raw, man; row 

And Caledon threw by the drone, bagpipe 
And did her whittle draw, man ; knife 

A nd swoor f u' rude, through dirt and blood, sw?re 
To make it guid in law, man. good 


»-****♦ 




THE BIRKS OF ABERFELDY. 




Tuke— The Birks of Abergeldy. 




CHORUS. 




Bonnie lassie, will ye go, 
Will ye go, will ye go ; 
Bonnie lassie, will ye go, 
To the birks of Aberfeldy ? 


• 


Now simmer blinks on flowery braes, 
And o'er the crystal streamlet plays ; 
Come, let us spend the lightsome days 
In the birks of Aberfeldy. 


glance* 


The little birdies blithely sing, 
While o'er their heads the hazels hing, 
Or lightly flit on wanton wing 
In the birks of Aberfeldy. 


hang 


The braes ascend, like lofty wa's, 
The foamy stream deep-roaring fa's, 
O'erhung wi' fragrant spreading shaws, 
The birks of Aberfeldy. 


walla 
woods 


The hoary cliffs are crown'd wi' flowers, 
White o'er the linns the burnie pours, 
And rising, weets wi' misty showers 
The birks of Aberfeldy. 


cascades 
wets 


Let Fortune's gifts at Random flee, 
They ne'er shall draw a wish frae me, 
Supremely blest wi' love and thee, 
In the birks of Aberfeldy. 


from 


BLITHE WAS SHE. 




Tuke — Andro and his Cutty Gun, 




CHORUS. 




Blithe, blithe and merry was she, 
Blithe was she butt and ben : 

Blithe by the banks of Earn, 
And blithe in Glenturit Glen 







BURKS' S0Nt3S. 


22? 




By Auchtertyre grows the aik, 


oak •' 




On Yarrow banks the birken shaw ; 


birch woods 




But Phemie was a bonnier lass 






Than braes o' Yarrow ever saw. 






Her looks were like a flower in May, 






Her smile was like a simmer morn ; 






She tripped by the banks o' Earn, 






As light's a bird upon a thorn. 






Her bonnie face it was as meek 






As ony lamb upon a lea ; 


anv, meadow 




The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet 


so 




As was the blink o' Phemie's ee. 


eye 




The Highland hills I've wandered wide, 






And o'er the lowlands I ha'e been ; 


have 




But Phemie was the blithest lass 






That ever trod the dewy green. 






THE HOSE-BUD. 






Tune— The Shepherd's Wife, 






A rose-bud by my early walk, 






Adown a corn-enclosed bawk, 


cpen space' 




Sae gently bent its thorny stalk, 


so 




All on a dewy morning. 






Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled, 






In a' its crimson glory spread, 






And drooping rich the dewy head, 






It scents the early morning. 






Within the bush, her covert nest, 






A little linnet fondly prest, 






The dew sat chilly on her breast 






Sae early in the morning. 






She soon shall see her tender brood, 






The pride, the pleasure o' the wood, 






Amang the fresh green leaves bedewed, 






Awake the early morning. 






So thou, dear bird, young Jenny fair ! 






On trembling string or vocal air, 






Shall sweetly pay the tender care 






That tents thy early morning. 


goarda 




So thou, sweet rose-bud, young and gay, 






Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day, 






And bless the parent's evening ray 






That watched thy early morning. 


4 



9 28 BURNS' SONGS. 



BRAVING ANGRY WINTER'S STORMS. 
Tune — Neil Gaw's Lamentation for Abercairny. 

Where, braving angry winter's storms, 

The lofty Ochils rise, 
Far in their shade my Peggy's charms 

First blest my wondering eyes ; 
As one who by some savage stream, 

A lonely gem surveys, 
Astonished, doubly marks its beam, 

With art's most polished blaze. 

Blest be the wild, sequestered shade, 

And blest the day and hour, 
AVhere Peggy's charms I first surveyed— 

When first I felt their power ! 
The tyrant death, with grim control, 

May seize my fleeting breath ; 
But tearing Peggy from my soul 

Must be a stronger death. 



MY PEGGY'S FACE 
Tune — My Peggy's Face. 

My Peggy's face, my Peggy's form, 
The frost of hermit age might warm ; 
My Peggy's worth, my Peggy's mind, 
Might charm the first of human kind. 
I love my Peggy's angel air, 
Her face so truly, heavenly fair, 
Her native grace so void of art, 
But I adore my Peggy's heart. 

The lily's hue, the rose's dye, 
The kindling lustre of an eye ; 
Who but owns their magic sway ! 
Who but knows they all decay ! 
The tender thrill, the pitying tear, 
The generous purpose, nobly dear, 
The gentle look, that rage disarms — 
These are all immortal charms. 



ON A YOUNG LADY 

RESIDING ON THE BANKS OF THE SMALL RIVER DEVON, IN 
CLACKMANNANSHIRE, BUT WHOSE INFANT YEARS WERE 
SPENT IN AYRSHIRE. 

How pleasant the banks of the clear-winding Devon, 
With green-spreading bushes, and flowers blooming fair; 

But the bonniest flower on the banks of the Devon 
Was once a sweet bud on the braes of tho Ayr. 



BURNS' SONGS. 228 



Mild be the sun on this sweet-blushing flower, 
In the gay rosy morn as it bathes in the dew ! 

And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower, 
That steals on the evening each leaf to renew. 

Oh spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes, 
With chill hoary wing as ye usher the dawn 1 

And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seizes 
The verdure and pride of the garden and lawn ! 

Let Bourbon exult in his gay-gilded lilies, 

And England triumphant display her proud rose, 

A fairer than either adorns the green valleys 
Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows. 



MACPHERSON'S FAREWELL. 
Tune— M'-Phersori's Rant. 
Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, 

The wretch's destinie I 
Macpherson's time will not be long 
On yonder gallows-tree. 

Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, so 

Sae dauntingly gaed he ; went 

He played a spring, and danced it round, a tune 
Below the gallows-tree. 

Oh, what is death but parting breath? 

On many a bloody plain 
I've dared his face, and in this place 

I scorn him yet again 1 

Untie these bands from off my hands, 

And bring to me my sword ; 
And there's no a man in all Scotland, 

But I'll brave him at a word. 

I've lived a life of sturt and strife ; Uouble 

I die by treacherie : 
It burns my heart I must depart, 

And not avenged be. 

Now farewell light — thou sunshine bright, 

And all beneath the sky ! 
May coward shame distain his name, 

The wretch that dares not die 1 - 



STAY MY CHARMER. 

Tune — An Gillie dubh ciar dhubh. 

Stay, my charmer, can you leave me ? 

Cruel, cruel to deceive me 

Well you know how much you grieve me ; 

Cruel charmer, can you go ? 

Cruel charmer, can you go ? 



280 BURNS' SONGS. 



By my love so ill requited, 

By the faith you fondly plighted, 

By the pangs of lovers slighted, 

Do not, do not leave me so ! 

Do not, do not, leave me so I 



STRATHALLAN'S LAMENT. 

Thickest night, o'erhang my dwelling ! 

Howling tempests, o'er me rave ! 
Turbid torrents, wintry swelling, 

Still surround my lonely cave I 

Crystal streamlets gently flowing, 
Busy haunts of base mankind, 

Western breezes softly blowing, 
Suit not my distraeted mind. 

In the cause of right engaged, 

Wrongs injurious to redress, 
Honour's war we strongly waged, 

But the heavens denied success. 

Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us, 
Not a hope that dare attend : 

The wide world is all before us — 
But a world without a friend ! 



THE YOUNG HIGHLAND ROVER. 
Tune — Morag, 

Loud blaw the frosty breezes, bio* 

The snaws the mountains cover ; snowe 

Like winter on me seizes, 

Since my young Highland Rover (Prince Charlie) 

Far wanders nations over. 
Where'er he go, where'er he stray, 

May Heaven be his warden, 
Return him safe to fair Strathspey, 

And bonnie Castle-Gordon ! 

The trees now naked groaning, 

Soon shall wi' leaves be hinging, hanging 

The birdies dowie moaning, sorrowful 

Shall a' be blithely singing, 

And every flower be springing. 
Sae I'll rejoice the lee-lang day, live-long 

When by his mighty warden 
My youth's returned to fair Strathspey 

And bonnie Castle-Gordon. 



BURNS' SONGS. 881 



RAVING WINDS ABOUND HER BLOWING.* 

Tune — Macgregor o/Ruara's Lament 

Raving winds around her blowing, 
Yellow leaves the woodlands strowing, 
By a river hoarsely roaring, 
Isabella strayed deploring — 
" Farewell hours that late did measure 
Sunshine days of joy and pleasure ; 
Hail, thou gloomy night of sorrow, 
Cheerless night that knows no morrow I 

" O'er the past too fondly wandering, 
On the hopeless future pondering ; 
Chilly grief my life-blood freezes, 
Fell despair my fancy seizes. 
Life, thou soul of every blessing, 
Load to misery most distressing, 
Gladly how would I resign thee, 
And to dark oblivion join thee 1" 



MUSING ON THE ROARING OCEAN.f 
Tura — Druimion Dubh. 

Musing on the roaring ocean, 
Which divides my love and me ; 

Wearying Heaven in warm devotion, 
For his weal where'er he be. 

Hope and fear's alternate billow 
Yielding late to Nature's law, 

Whisp'ring spirits round my pillow* 
Talk of him that's far awa. 

Ye whom sorrow never wounded, 

Ye who never shed a tear, 
Care-untroubled, j oy-surrounded, 

Gaudy day to you is dear. 

Gentle night, do thou befriend me ; 

Downy sleep, the curtain draw ; 
Spirits kind, again attend me, 

Talk of him that's far awa. 



* I composed these verses on Miss Isabella M'Leod of Raasay, alludirg to her 
feelings on the death of her sister, and the still more melancholy death (1786) of 
her sister's husband, the late Earl of Loudon, who shot himself out of sheer heart- 
break at some mortifications he suffered owing to the deranged state of his 
finances.— B. 

t I composed these verses out of compliment to a Mrs Maclachlan, whose hust 
band is an ofiGLcor in the East Indies- — B. 



282 burns' songs. 

BONNIE PEGGY ALISON. 

Tune — Braes o' Balquhidder. 

CHORUS. 

I'll kiss thee yet, yet, 

And I'll kiss thee o'er again, 
And I'll kiss thee yet, yet, 

My bonnie Peggy Alison ! 

Ilk care and fear, when thou art near, each 

I ever mair defy them, ! mora 

Young kings upon their hansel throne lucky 

Are no sae blest as I am, O ! not so 

"When in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, 

I clasp my countless treasure, O, 
I seek nae mair o' heaven to share no 

Than sic a moment's pleasure, O ! such 

And by thy een, sae bonnie blue, eyes 

I swear I'm thine for ever, O * — 
And on thy lips I seal my vow, 

And break it shall I never, ! 



I LOVE MY JEAN. 
Tune — Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey 

O* A* the airts the wind can blaw, quarters, blow 

I dearly loe the west, lore 

For there the bonnie lassie lives, 

The lass that I loe best : 
There wild woods grow, and rivers row, roll 

Wi' mony a hill between ; many 

But day and night my fancy's flight 

Is ever wi' my Jean. 

I see her in the dewy flowers, 

Sae lovely sweet and fair : so 

I hear her voice in ilka bird, every 

Wi' music charm the air : 
There's not a bonnie flower that springs 

By fountain, shaw, or green ; wood 

There's not a bonnie bird that sings, 

But minds me o* my Jean. 



OH, WERE I ON PARNASSUS' HILL f 

Tune — My Love is lost to me. 

Oh, were I on Parnassus' hill I 
Or had of Helicon my fill ; 
That I might catch poetic skill, 
To sing how dear I love thee. 



burns' songs. 



233 



But Nith maun be my Muse's well, must 

My Muse maun be thy bonnie sel'; self 

On Corsincon I'll glower and spell, stare, narrate 
And write how dear I lore thee. 

Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay ! 

For a' the lee-lang simmer's day live-long summer 

T couldna sing, I couldna say, 

How much, how dear I love thee. 
I see thee dancing o'er the green, 
Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean, 
Thy tempting lips, thy roguish een — 

By heaven and earth I love thee I 



By night, by day, a-fleld, at hame, 

The thoughts of thee my breast inflame ; 

And aye I muse and sing thy name — 

I only live to love thee. 
Though I were doomed to wander on 
Beyond the sea, beyond the sun, 
Till my last weary sand was run ; 

Till then — and then I love thee. 



could not 

small, neat 
eyes 

home 
still 



THE DAY RETURNS. 

Tune — Seventh of November. 

The day returns, my bosom burns, 

The blissful day we twa did meet ; 
Though winter wild in tempest toiled, 

Ne'er summer sun was half sae sweet. 
Than a' the pride that loads the tide, 

And crosses o'er the sultry line ; 
Than kingly robes, than crowns and globes, 

Heaven gave me more — it made thee mine! 

"While day and night can bring delight, 

Or nature aught of pleasure give. 
While joys above my mind can move. 

For thee, and thee alone, I live. 
When that grim foe of life below 

Comes in between to make us part. 
The iron hand that breaks our band, 

It breaks my bliss — it breaks my heart ! 



twc 
so 



THE LAZY MIST. 
Tune— The Lazy Mist 

The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill, 
Concealing the course of the dark-winding rill ; 
How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear 
As autumn to winter resigns the pale year. 



?34 BURNS' SONGS. 



The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown, 
And all the gay foppery of summer is flown : 
Apart let me wander, apart let me muse, 
How quick time is flying, how keen fate pursues ! 

How long I have liv'd — but how much liv'd in vain 1 
How little of life's scanty span may remain ! 
"What aspects old Time, in his progress, has worn ! 
What ties cruel fate in my bosom has torn ! 
How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gained ! 
And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, how pain 'd I 
This life's not worth having with all it can give — 
For something beyond it poor man sure must live. 



I HAE A PENNY TO SPEND. 
Tune — I hoe a Wife o' my ain. 

I HAE a penny to spend, have 

There — thanks to naebody ; nobody 

I hae naething to lend, 

111 borrow frae naebody. from 

I am naebody's lord, 

I'll be slave to naebody ; 
I hae a guid braid sword, good broad 

Fll tak dunts frae naebody. blows 

111 be merry and free, 

111 be sad for naebody ; 
If naebody care for me, 

111 care for naebody. 



AULD LANG SYNE. 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot. 

And never brought to mind ? 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 

And days o' lang syne. 

CHORUS. 

For auld lang syne, my dears, 

For auld lang syne, 
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, 

For auld lang syne. 

We twa hae run about the braes, two have 

And pu'd the gowans fine ; pulled, daisies 

But we've wandered mony a weary foot, 
Sin' auld lang syne. 

We twa hae paidl't i' the burn, dabbled 

Frae morning sun till dine ; from, noon 




~W& twa l.ae -r-rm albcrn± -the T31ra.es, 
A-n R ^ra_'cL -the go-wans i£xn_e. 

T .234 



BURNS' songs. 


28S ' 


But seas between us braid hae roar'd, 


broad 


Sin' auld lang syne. 




And here's a hand, my trusty fiere, 


friend 


And gie's a hand o' thine ; 


give 


And we'll tak a right guid willie-w aught 


good, draught 


For auld lang syne. 




And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup, 


flagon 


And surely I'll be mine ; 




And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet 




For auld lang syne. 




MY BONNIE MARY. 




Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, 




And fill it in a silver tassie ; 


cup 


That I may drink before I go, 




A service to my bonnie lassie. 




The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith, 




Fu' loud the wind blawsfrae the Ferry ; 


blows from 


The ship rides by the Berwick-law, 




And I maun leave my bonnie Mary. 


must 


The trumpets sound, the banners fly, 




The glittering spears are ranked ready ; 




The shouts o' war are heard afar, 




The battle closes thick and bloody ; 




But it's not the roar o' sea or shore 




Wad make me langer wish to tarry ; 


would 


Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar — 




It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary. 




WILLIE BREWED A PECK 0' MAUT. 


Willie brewed a peck o' maut, 


malt 


And Rob and Allan cam to pree : 


came, taste 


Three blither hearts that lee-lang night, 


live-long 


Ye wad na find in Christendie. 


would not 


We ar9 na fou', we're nae that fou', 


tipsy 


But just a drappie in our ee ; 


drop, eve 


The cock may craw, the day^maydaw, 


crow, davn 


And aye we'll taste the barley bree. 




Here are we met, three merry boys, 




Three merry boys, I trow, are we ; 




And mony a night we've merry been, 


many 


And mony mae we hope to be I 


more 


It is the moon, I ken her horn, 


know 


That's blinkin' in the lift sae hie ; 


sky, so high 


She shines sae bright to wile us hame, 


home 


But, by my sooth, she'll wait a wee 1 


while 

i 



236 BURNS' SONGS. 


Wha first shall rise to gang awa', 


go 


A feckless coward loon is he ! 


silly, fellow 


Wha last beside his chair shall fa', 




He is the king amang us three ! 


among 
NITH. 


THE LADDIES BY THE BANKS 0' 


Tune — Up and waur them a\ 




The laddies by the banks o' Nith, 




Wad trust his Grace wi' a', Jamie, 


would 


But he'll sair them as he sair'd the king — 


serve 


Turn tail and rin awa, Jamie. 




Up and waur them a', Jamie, 


baffle 


Up and waur them a' ; 




The Johnstons hae the guidin' o't, 


have 


Ye turncoat Whigs, awa'. 




The day he stude his country's friend, 


stood 


Or gied her faes a claw, Jamie, 


gave, f ops 


Or frae puir man a blessin' wan, 


from poor, won 


That day the Duke ne'er saw, Jamie. 




But wha is he, his country's boast ? 


who 


Like him there is na twa, Jamie; 


two 


There's no a callant tents the kye, 


boy, tends, cows 


But kens o' Westerha', Jamie. 


knows 


To end the wark, here's Whistlebirck, 


work 


Lang may his whistle blaw, Jamie ; 


long, blow 


And Maxwell true o' sterling blue, 




And we'll be Johnstons a', Jamie. 




THE BLUE-EYED LASSIE. 




I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen, went, 


wo rful, last night 


A gate, I fear, I'll dearly rue ; 


road 


I gat my death frae twa sweet een, 


got, two 


Twa lovely een o' bonnie blue. 


eyes 


1 Twas not her golden ringlets bright ; 




Her lips like roses wat wi' dew, 


wet 


Her heaving bosom, lily-white — 




It was her een sae bonnie blue. 


so 


She talked, she smiled, my heart she wiled 




She charmed my soul — I wist na how ; 




And aye the stound, the deadly wound, 


still, pang 


Cam frae her een sae bonnie blue. 


from 


But, spare to speak, and spare to speed ; 




She'll aiblins listen to my vow : 


perhaps 


Should she refuse, I'll lay my dead 


deatfc 


To her twa een sae bonnie blue. 






i 



BURNS SONGS. 



SONG. 

Air — Maggy Lauder. 

When first I saw fair Jeanie's face, 

I couldna tell what ailed me, could not 

My heart went fluttering pit-a-pat, 

My een they almost failed me. eyes 

She's aye sae neat, sae trim, sae tight, so 

Ail grace does round her hover, 
Ae look deprived me o' my heart, ona 

And I became a lover. 

She's aye, aye sae blithe, sae gay, 
She's aye so blithe and cheerie ; 
She's aye sae bonny, blithe, and gay, 

O gin I were her dearie 1 that 

Had I Dundas's whole estate, 

Or Hopetoun's wealth to shine in : 
Did warlike laurels crown my brow, 

Or humbler bays entwining — 
I'd lay them a' at Jeanie's feet, 

Could I but hope to move her, 
And prouder than a belted knight, 

I'd be my Jeanie's lover. 

She's aye, aye sae blithe, sae gay, &c. 

But sair I fear some happier swain sore 

Has gained sweet Jeanie's favour : 
If so, may every bliss be hers, 

Though I maun never have her. mint 

But gang she east, or gang she west, gc 

'Twixt Forth and Tweed all over, 
While men have eyes, or ears, or taste, 

She'll always find a lover. 
She's aye, aye sae blithe, sae gay, &c. 



MY LOYELY NANCY. 

TuffE— The Quaker's Wife. 

Thine am I, my faithful fair, 
Thine, my lovely Nancy ; 

Every pulse along my veins, 
Every roving fancy. 

To thy bosom lay my heart, 
There to throb and languish : 

Though despair had wrung its cors, 
That would heal its anguish. 

Take away those rosy lips, 
Rich with balmy treasure ; 

Turn away thine eyes of Ioto, 
Lest I die with pleasure. 



188 BURNS' SONGS. 



What is life when wanting love ? 

Night without a morning : 
Love's the cloudless summer sun, 

Nature gay adorning. 



TIBBIE DUNBAR. 
Tune— Johnny M'OiU. 

O WILT thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar ? 

wilt thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar ? 
Wilt thou ride on a horse or be drawn in a car, 
Or walk by my side, sweet Tibbie Dunbar ? 

1 carena thy daddie, his lands andhis money, care not for 
I carena thy kin, sae high and sae lordly ; so 
But say thou wilt hae me, for better for waur, have, worse 
And come in thy coatie, sweet Tibbie Dunbar ! 



THE GARDENER WI' HIS PAIDLE. 
Tune — The Gardener's March. 

When rosy morn comes in wi' showers, 

To deck her gay green birken bowers, birch 

Then busy, busy are his hours, 

The gardener wi' his paidle. hoe 

The crystal waters gently fa', 
The merry birds are lover3 a', 

The scented breezes round him blaw, blow 

The gardener wi' his paidle. 

When purple morning starts the hare, 
To steal upon her early fare, 

Then through the dews he maun repair, must 

The gardener wi' his paidle. 

When day, expiring in the west, 
The curtain draws of Nature's rest, 
He flies to her arms he loes the best, loves 

The gardener wi' his paidle. 



DAINTY DAVIE. 

Tune— Dainty Davie. 

Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, 
To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers ; 
And now come in my happy hours, 
To wander wi' my Davie. 



BURNS' SONGS. 


23U 


CHORUS. 




Meet me on the warlock knowe, 


knoll 


Dainty Davie, dainty Davy ; 


worthy 


There 111 spend the day wi' you, 




My ain dear dainty Davie. 


own 


The crystal waters round us fa', 




The merry birds are lovers a', 




The scented breezes round us blaw, 


blow 


A-wandering wi' my Davie. 




When purple morning starts the hare, 




To steal upon her early fare, 




Then through the dews I will repair, 




To meet my faithfu' Davie. 




When day, expiring in the west, 




The curtain draws o' Nature's rest, 




I flee to his arms I loe best, 


love 


And that's my ain dear Davie. 




HIGHLAND HARRY. 




My Harry was a gallant gay, 




Fu' stately strode he on the plain : 




But now he's banished far away ; 




I'll never see him back again. 




for him back again I 




for him back again ! 




I wad gie a' Knockhaspie's land 


would giva 


For Highland Harry back again. 




• "When a' the lave gae to their bed, 


rest go 


I wander dowie up the glen ; 


sad 


I set me down and greet my fill, 


cry 


And aye I wish him back again. 


always 


were some villains hangit high, 


hanged 


And ilka body had their ain ! 


each, own 


Then I might see the joyfu' sight, 




My Highland Harry back again. 




BONNIE ANN. 


Aib — Ye Gallants bright 




Ye gallants bright, I rede ye right, 


tell 


Beware o' bonnie Ann ; 




Her comely face sae fu' o' grace, 


80 


Your heart she will trepan. 




Her een sae bright, like stars by night, 


eye* 


Her skin is like the swan ; 




Sae jimply laced her genty waist, 


small, neat 


That sweetly ye might span. 





240 BURNS* SONGS. 


Youth, grace, and love attendant move, 




And pleasure leads the van : 




In a' their charms aud conquering arms 




They wait on bonnie Ann. 




The captive bands may chain the hands, 




But love enslaves the man ; 




Ye gallants braw, I rede you a', 


tall 


Beware o' bonnie Ann ! 




JOHN ANDERSON. 


Tune — John Anderson myjo. 




John Anderson my jo, John, 




When we were first acquent, 




Your locks were like the raven, 




Your bonnie brow was brent ; 


smooth 


But now your brow is beld, John, 


bald 


Your locks are like the snaw ; 




But blessings on your frosty pow, 


head 


John Anderson myjo. 




John Anderson my jo, John, 




We clamb the hill thegither, 


climbed 


And mony a canty day, John, 


many, happy 


We've had wi' ane anither : 


one another 


Now we maun totter down, John, 


must . 


But hand in hand we'll go, 




And sleep thegither at the foot, 


together 


John Anderson my jo. 




THE BATTLE OF SHERIFF-MUIR. 


Tune— -Cameronian Rant. 




u CAM ye here the fight to shun, 


came 


Or herd the sheep wi' me, man ? 




Or were ye at the Sherra-muir, 




And did the battle see, man ?" 




" I saw the battle, sair and tough, 


sore 


And reekm' red ran mony a sheugh ; smoking, channel 


My heart, for fear, gaed sough for sough, 


gave sigh 


To hear the thuds, and see the cluds knocks, clouds 


0' clans frae woods, in tartan duds, 


from, clothes 


Wha glaumed at kingdoms three, man. 


who grasped 


" The red-coat lads, wi' black cockades, 




To meet them were na slaw, man ; 


not slow 


They rushed and pushed, and bluid outgushed. 


blood 


And mony a bouk did fa', man ; 


many, corpse 


The great Argyle led on his files, 




I wat they glanced for twenty miles : 


believe 


They hacked and hashed, while broadswords clashed, 


And through they dashed, and hewed, and smashed 


i 


Till fey men died awa, man. 


predestined 

i 



BURNS' songs. 



241 



" But had you seen the philabegs, the kilts 

And skyrin tartan trews, man; shining 

When in the teeth they dared our Whigs, 
And covenant true blues, man ; 

In lines extended lang and large, long 

When bayonets opposed the targe, target 

And thousands hastened to the charge, 

Wi' Highland wrath they frae the sheath from 

Drew blades o' death, till, out o' breath, 

They fled like frighted doos, man." doves 

" how, iL^x, Tarn, can that be true ? 

The chase gaed frae the North, man ; _ went 

I saw myself, they did pursue 

The horsemen back to Forth, man ; 
And at Dunblane, in my ain sight, own 

They took the brig wi' a' their might, 
And straught to Stirling winged their flight ; straight 

But, fearfu' lot ! the gates were shut ; 
And mony a huntit, poor red-coat, many, hunted 

For fear amaist did swarf, man !' 5 almost, swoon 

" My sister Kate cam up the gate, 

Wi' crowdie unto me, man ; porridge 

She swore she saw some rebels run 

Frae Perth unto Dundee, man : 
Their left-hand general had nae skill, no 

The Angus lads had nae good will 

That day their neibors' blood to spill ; neighbours 

For fear, by foes, that they should lose 
Their cogs o' brose — all crying woes ; basin 

And so it goes, you see, man. 

" They've lost some gallant gentlemen 

Amang the Highland clans, man : 
I fear my Lord Panmure is slain, 

Or fallen in Whiggish hands, man : 
Now wad ye sing this double fight, wcuid 

Some fell for wrang, and some for right ; &rcng 

But mony bade the world guid-night ; 
Then ye may tell, how pell and mell, 
By red claymores, and muskets' knell, 
Wi' dying yell, the Tories fell, 

And Whigs awa' did flee, man." 



BLOOMING NELLY. 
Tuxe— On a Bank of Flower*. 

On a bank of flowers, in a summer daj s 

For summer lightly drest, 
The youthful, blooming Nelly lay, 

With love and sleep opprest ; 



BURNS* SONGS. 



When "Willie, wandering through the wood, 
Who for her favour oft had sued, 

He gazed, he wished, he feared, he blushed, 
And trembled where he stood. 

Her closed eyes like weapons sheathed, 

Were sealed in soft repose ; 
Her lip, still as she fragrant breathed, 

It richer dyed the rose. 
The springing lillies sweetly prest, 

Wild-wanton, kissed her rival breast ; 
He gazed, he wished, he feared, he blushed— 

His bosom ill at rest. 

Her robes light waving in the breeze, 

Her tender limbs embrace ; 
Her lovely form, her native ease, 

All harmony and grace : 
Tumultuous tides his pulses roll, 

A faltering, ardent kiss he stole ; 
He gazed, he wished, he feared, he blushed, 

And sighed his very soul. 

As flies the partridge from the brake 

On fear-inspired wings, 
So Nelly starting, half awake, 

Away affrighted springs : 
But Willy followed, as he should ; 

He overtook her in the wood ; 
He vowed, he prayed, he found the maid 

Forgiving all and good. 



MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS. 

Tune— Failte na Miosg. 

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here ; 
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer ; 
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe — 
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. 

"Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, 
The birthplace of valour, the country of worth ; 
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, 
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. 

Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow ; 
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below : 
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods ; 
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. 

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not her ; 
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer t 
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe — 
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. 



BURiNS' SONGS. 


2-±3 


THE BANKS OF NITH. 




Tune— Robie donna Oorach. 




The Thames flows proudly to the sea ; 

"Where royal cities stately stand ; 
But sweeter flows the Nith, to me, 

Where Cummins ance had high command , 
When shall I see that honoured land, 

That winding stream I love so dear I 
Must wayward Fortune's adverse hand 

For ever, ever keep me here ? 


once 


How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales, 

Where spreading hawthorns gaily blooms 1 
How sweetly wind thy sloping dales, 

Where lambkins wanton through the broom 
Though wandering, now, must be my doom, 

Far from thy bonnie banks and braes, 
May there my latest hours consume, 

Amang the friends of early days 1 


T 


MY HEART IS A-BREAKING, DEAR TITTIE 1 


My heart is a-breaking, dear tittie 1 
Some counsel unto me come len', 

To anger them a' is a pity, 
But what will I do wi' Tarn Glen ? 


sister 


I'm thinking wi' sic a braw fellow 
In poortith I might make a fen' ; 

What care I in riches to wallow, 
If I maunna marry Tarn Glen ? 


such 
poverty, shift 

must not 


There's Lowrie, the Laird o* Drumeller, 
Guid-day to you, brute 1 he comes ben ; 

He brags and he blaws o' his siller, 
But when will he dance like Tarn Glen ? 


good-day, in 
b oasts 


My minnie does constantly deave me, mother, deafen 

And bids me beware o' young men ; 
They flatter, she says, to deceive me, 

But wha can think sae o' Tarn Glen ? who, sc 


My daddie says, gin I'll forsake him, 
He'll gie me guid hunder marks ten : 

But if it's ordained I maun take him, 
wha will I get but Tarn Glen ? 


if 

give, good 

must 


Yestreen at the valentines' dealing, last night 
My heart to my mou gied a sten ; mouth, gave, bound 

For thrice I drew ane without failing, one 
And thrice it was written — Tarn Glen. 


The last Halloween I was waukin watching 
My droukit sark-sleeve, as ye ken ' wet shift, know 

■ 



214 BURNS SONGS. 



His likeness cam up the house staukin, stalking 

And the very gray breeks o* Tarn Glen ! trews 

Come counsel, dear tittie ! don't tarry — 

I'll gie you my bonnie black hen, 

Oif ye will advise me to marry if 

The lad I loe dearly — Tarn. Glen. love 



THERE'LL NEVER BE PEACE TILL JAMIE 
COMES HAME. 

By yon castle wa\ at the close of the day, 

I heard a man sing, though his head it was gray ; 

And as he was singing, the tears fast down came — 

There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. home 

The church is in ruins, the state is in jars : 

Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars ; 

We darena weel say't, though we ken wha's to blame, dare not, 

There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. [know 

My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword, 
And no wlgreet round their green beds in the yerd. weep, church- 
It brak the sweet heart of my faithfu' auld dame — [yard 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 
Now life is a burden that bows me down, 
Since I tint my bairns, and he tint his crown ; lost 
B"it till my last moments my words are the same — 
I here 11 never be peace till Jamie comes hame 1 



LOVELY DA VIES. 

Tunb—Mw Muir. 

O HOW shall I, unskihV, try 

The poet's occupation, 
The tunefu' powers, in happy hours, 

That whisper inspiration ? 
Even they maun dare an effort mair must, more 

Than aught they ever gave us, 
Ere they rehearse, in equal verse. 

The charms o' lovely Davies. 

Each eye it cheers, when she appears, 

Like Phoebus in the morning, 
When past the shower, and every flow©? 

The garden is adorning. 
As the wretch looks o'er Siberia's shore, 

When winter-bound the wave is ; 
Sae droops our heart when we maun part so 

Frae charming, lovely Davies. from 

Her smile's a gift, frae 'boon the lift, sky 

That maks us mair than princes ; makes 

A sceptered hand, a king's command, 
Is in her darting glance : 



BURNS' SONGS. 245 



The man in arms, 'gainst female charms, 

Even he her willing slave is ; 
He hugs his chain, and owns the reign 

Of conquering, lovely Davies. 

My Muse to dream of such a theme, 

Her feeble powers surrender ; 
The eagle's gaze alone surveys 

The sun's meridian splendour : 
I wad in vain essay the strain, would 

The deed too daring brave is ; 
I'll drop the lyre, and mute admire 

The charms o' lovely Davies. 



THE BONNIE WEE THING. 
Tote — Bonnie wee Thing. 

Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing, gentle 

Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine, 
I wad wear thee in my bosom, would 

Lest my jewel I should tine ! lose 

"Wishfully I look and languish 

In that bonnie face o' thine ; 
And my heart it stounds wr anguish, throbs 

Lest my wee thing be na mine. not 

Wit, and grace, and love, and beauty, 

In ae constellation shine ; one 

To adore thee is my duty, 

Goddess o' this soul o' mine ! 
Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing, 

Lovely wee thing, wert though miii£, 
I wad wear thee in my bosom, 

Lest my jewel I should tine I 



SONG OF DEATH. 

Air — Oran an Aoig. 

Scene — A Field of Battle — Time of the day, Evening — The wounded and 
lying of the victorious army are supposed to join in the following song:— . 

Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies, 

Now gay with the bright setting sun ; 
Farewell loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties— 

Our race of existence is run 1 

Thou grim King of Terrors, thou life's gloomy foe ! 

Go, frighten the coward and slave ; 
Go, teach them to tremble, fell tyrant ! but know 

No terrors hast thou to the brave ! 

Thou strik'st the dull peasant — he sinks in the dark. 
Nor saves e'en the wreck of a name ; 



U 6 BURNS' SONGS. 



Thou strik'st the young hero — a glorious mark ! 
He falls in the blaze of his fame ! 

In the field of proud honour — our swords in our hands, 

Our king and our country to save — 
While victory shines on life's last ebbing sands, 

Oh ! who would not die with the brave ? 



SONG. 

Tune— -Rory DalTs Port. 

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever I 

Ae fareweel, and then for ever ! 

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, 

Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 

Who shall say that Fortune grieves him, 
While the star of hope she leaves him ? 
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me ; 
Dark despair around benights me. 

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy, 
Nae thing could resist my Nancy : 
But to see her was to love her ; 
Love but her, and love for ever. 

Had we never loved sae kindly, 
Had we never loved sae blindly ! 
Never met — or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted. 

Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest ! 
Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest ! 
Thine be ilka joy and treasure, 
Peace, Enjoyment, Love, and Pleasure ! 

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ! 

Ae fareweel, alas ! for ever ! 

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, 

Warring sighs and groans' I'll wage thee. 



SONG. 

To a charming plaintive Scots Air. 

Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December ! 

Ance mair I hail thee wi' sorrow and care : 
Sad was the parting thou mak'st me remember, 

Parting wi' Nancy, oh, ne'er to meet mair 1 

Fond lover's parting is sweet, painful pleasure, 
Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour ; 

But the dire feeling, oh, farewell for ever ! 
Anguish unmingled and agony pure ! 



BURNS SONGS. 



247 



Wild as the winter now tearing the forest, 
Till the last leaf o' the summer is flown, 

Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom, 
Since my last hope and last comfort is gone ! 

Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December, 
Still shall I hail thee wi' sorrow and care ; 

For sad was the parting thou mak'st me remember, 
Parting wi' Nancy, oh, ne'er to meet mair 1 



O MAY, THY MORN. 

O May, thy morn was ne'er so sweet, 

As the mirk night o' December, daifc 

For sparkling was the rosy wine, 

And secret was the chamber ; 
And dear was she I darena name, dare not 

But I will aye remember : always 

And dear was she I darena name, 

But I will aye remember. 

And here's to them that like oursel' 

Can push about the jorum ; jug of drink 

And here's to them that wish us weel, 

May a' that's guid watch o'er them I 
And here's to them we darena name, 

The dearest o' the quorum : 
And here's to them we darena tell, 

The dearest o* the quorum. 



MY NANNIE'S A VTA. 

Now in her green mantle blithe Nature arrays, ' 

And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, 

"While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw ; wood 

But to me it's delightless — my Nannie's awa. away 

The snawdrap and primrose our woodlands adorn, snowdrop 

And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn ; dew 

They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw, so, blow 
They mind me o' Nannie — and Nannie's awa. 

Thou laverock that springs frae the dews of the lawn, lark, from 
The shepherd to warn o' the grey-breaking dawn ; 
And thou mellow mavis that hails the night fa', thrush 

Give over for pity — my Nannie's awa. 

Come Autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and gray, 

And soothe me with tidings o' Nature's decay : 

The dark, dreary winter, and wild driving snaw 

Alane can delight me — Now Nannie's awa ! along 



2*8 



BURNS' SONGS. 



BONNIE LESLEY. 

O saw ye bonnie Lesley, 

As she gaed ower the Border ? went, ovei 

She's gane, like Alexander, gona 

To spread her conquests farther. 

To see her is to love her, 

And love but her for ever ; 
For Nature made her what she is, 

And never made anither ! another 

Thou art a queen, fair Lesley, 

Thy subjects we, before thee^ 
Thou art divine, fair Lesley, 

The hearts o' men adore thee. 

Nae body dares to scaith thee, harm 

Or aught that wad belang thee ; would belong 

They'd look into thy bonnie face, 

And say, " I canna wrang thee ! " cannot, wrong 

The powers aboon will tent thee ; above, tend 

Misfortune sha' na steer thee ; shall not stir 

Thou'rt like themselves sae lovely, so 
That ill they'll ne'er let near thee. 

Return again, fair Lesley, 

Return to Caledonie ! 
That we may brag, we hae a lass boast, have 

There's nane again sae bonnie. none 



CRAIGIEBURN WOOD. 

Sweet fa's the eve on Craigieburn. 

And blithe awakes the morrow ; 
But a' the pride o' Spring's return 

Can yield me nocht but sorrow. nought 

T see the flowers and spreading trees, 

I hear the wild birds singing ; 
But what a weary wight can please, 

And care his bosom wringing ? 

Fain, fain would I my griefs impart, 

Yet darena for your anger ; dare not 

But secret love will break my heart 

If 1 conceal it langer. longer 

If thou refuse to pity me, 

If thou shalt love anither, 
When yon green leaves fade frae the tree, from 

Around my grave they'll wither. 



—I 



BURKS' SONGS. 


240 


FRAE THE FRIENDS AND LAND I LOVE. 




Air — Carron Side, 




Frae the friends and land I lovo 


from 


Driven by Fortune's felly spite, 


fell 


Frae my best beloved I rove, 




Never mair to taste delight ; 


more 


Never mair maun hope to find 


must 


Ease frae toil, relief frae care : 




When remembrance wracks the mind, 


racks 


Pleasures but unveil despair. 




Brightest climes shall mirk appear, 


dark 


Desert ilka*blooming shore, 


everj 


Till the Fates nae mair severe, 




Friendship, love, and peace restore ; 




Till Revenge, wi' laurelled head, 




Bring our banished hame again ; 


home 


And ilk loyal bonnie lad 


each 


Cross the seas and win his ain. 


own 


MEIKLE THINKS MY LOVE. 




Ttjne — My Tocher's the Jewel 




meikle thinks my luve o' my beauty, 


much 


And meikle thinks my luve o' my kin ; 




But little thinks my luve I ken brawlie know weU 


My tocher's the jewel has charms for him. 


dower 


It's a' for the apple he'll nourish the tree ; 


* 


It's a' for the honey he'll cherish the bee ; 




My laddie's sae meikle in love wi' the siller, 


money 


He canna hae luve to spare for me. cannot, have 


Your proffer o' hive's an arle-penny, earnes 


t -money 


My tocher's the bargain ye wad buy ; 


would 


But an ye be crafty, I am cunnin', 


if 


Sae ye wi' anither your fortune maun try. 


so, must 


Ye're like to the timmer o' yon rotten wood, 


timber 


Ye're like to the bark o' yon rotten tree, 




Yell slip frae me like a knotless thread, 


from 


And ye'll crack your credit wi mae nor me. 


more 


WHAT CAN A YOUNG LASSIE ? 




Tune — What can a Young Lassie do wi' an Auld Man? 




What can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie, 




What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man ? 




Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie 


mother 


To sell her poor Jenny for siller and Ian' ! 


monev 



250 BURNS' SONGS. 



He's always compleenin' frae lnornin' to e'enin'. 

He hoasts and he hirples the weary day lang ; coughg 

He's doyl't and he's dozing his bluid it is frozen, stupid, blood 

dreary's the time wi» a crazy auld man ! 

He hums and he hankers, he frets and he cankers, 

1 never can please him, do a' that I can ; 
He's peevish and jealous of a' the young fellows : 

O dool on the day I met wi' an auld man ! sorrow 

My auld auntie Katie upon me takes pity, 

I'll do my endeavour to follow her plan ; 
I'll cross him, and wrack him, until I heart-break him, rack 

And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan. 



HOW CAN I BE BLITHE AND GLAD ? 
Tune — T/ie Bonnie Lad that's far awa. 

how can I be blithe and glad, 

Or how can I gang brisk and braw, go 

When the bonnie lad that I loe best love 

Is ower the hills and far awa ? over, away 

It's no the frosty winter wind, 

It's no the driving drift and snaw ; 
But aye the tear comes in my ee, eye 

To think on him that's far awa. 

A pair o' gloves he bought to me, 

And silken snoods he gae me twa band for hair, gave, 

And I will wear them for his sake, [two 

The bonnie lad that's far awa. 



I. DO CONFESS THOU ART SAE FAIR. 

I DO confess thou art sae fair, so 

I wad been ower the lugs in love, would, ears 

Had I na found the slightest prayer not 

That lips could speak thy heart could move. 
I do confess thee sweet, but find 

Thou art sae thriftless o' thy sweets, so 

Thy favours are the silly wind, 

That kisses ilka thing it meets. every 

See yonder rose-bud, rich in dew, 

Among its native briers sae coy; 
How sune it tines its scent and hue soon, loses 

When poued, and worn a common toy ! palled 

Sic fate, ere lang, shall thee betide, such 

Though thou may gaily bloom awhile ; 
Yet sune thou shalt be thrown aside 

Like ony common weed and vile. any 



burns' songs. 


251 


YON WILD MOSSY MOUNTAINS. 




Tune — Ton wild Mossy Mountains. 




Yon wild aoossy mountains sae lofty and wide, sc 
That nurse in their bosom the youth o' the Clyde, 
Where the grouse lead their coveys through the heather to feed, 
And the shepherd tents his flock as he pipes on his reed. 


Not Gowrie's rich valleys, nor Forth's sunny shores, 
To me hae the charms o' yon wild mossy moors ; 
For there, by a lanely and sequestered stream, 
Resides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream. 


have 
lonely 


Amang thae wild mountains shall still be my path, 
Ilk stream, foaming down its ain green, narrow strath; 
For there, wi' my lassie, the day lang I rove, 
While o'er us unheeded flee the swift hours o' love. 


these 

each, own, 

[vallev 


She is not the fairest, although she is fair ; 
0' nice education but sma' is her share ; 
Her parentage humble as humble can be ; 
But I loe the dear lassie because she loes me. 


lo?e 


To beauty what man but maun yield him a prize, 
In her armour of glances, and blushes, and sighs ! 
And when wit and refinement hae polished her darts, 
They dazzle our een, as they flee to our hearts. 


must 

have 
eyes | 


But kindness, sweet kindness, in the fond sparkling ee, 
Has lustre outshining the diamond to me ; 
And the heart beating love as I'm clasped in her arms 
Oh, these are my lassie's all-conquering charms !■ 


! 
eye , 

> 


FOR ANE-AND-TWENTY, TAM. 




Tune — The Moudiewwt. 




CHORUS. 




And for ane-and twenty, Tarn, 

And hey, sweet ane-and-twenty, Tarn, 

111 learn my kin a rattlin' sang, 
An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tarn. 


twenty-one 
song 


They snool me sair, and hand me down, snub, sore, keep j 
And gar me look like bluntie, Tarn ! make, stupid 

But three short years will soon wheel roun' — 
And then cornea ane-and-twenty, T'am. 


A gleib o' Ian', a claut o* gear, piece, 

Was left me by my auntie, Tarn ; 
At kith or kin I needna spier, 

An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tarn, 


lot of wealth 
ask 

a 



i52 BURNS' SONGS. 


They'll hae me wed a wealthy coof, 


fool 


Though I myseP hae plenty, Tarn ; 


have 


"But hear'st thon, laddie — there's my loof — 


hand 


I'm thine at ane-and-twenty, Tarn. 


yHEEL. 


BESS AND HER SPINNINGS 


Tune— The Sweet Lass that loes me. 


leeze me on my spinning-wheel, 


blessings on 


leeze me on my rock and reel ; 




Frae tap to tae that cleeds me bien, 


top to toe, clothes, 


And haps me fiel and warm at e'en ! 


wraps, soft [well 


I'll set me down and sing and spin, 




"While laigh descends the simmer sun, 


low, summer 


Blest wi' content, and milk and meal — 




leeze me on my spinning-wheel 1 




On ilka hand the burnies trot, 


every, run 


And meet below my theekit cot ; 


thatched 


The scented birk and hawthorn white, 


birch 


Across the pool their arms unite, 




Alike to screen the birdie's nest, 




And little fishes' caller rest : 


cool 


The sun blinks kindly in the biel', 


shelter 


Where blithe I turn my spinning-wheel. 




On lofty aiks the cushats wail, 


oaks, wood-pigeons 


And echo cons the doolfu' tale ; 


sorrowful 


The lintwhites in the hazel brae3, 


linnets 


Delighted, rival ither's lays : 


each others 


The craik amang the clover hay, 


land-rail 


The paitrick whirrin' o'er the ley, 


partridge, grass fields 


The swallow jinkin' round my shiel, 


whirling, hut 


Amuse me at my spinning-wheel. 




Wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy, 


little 


Aboon distress, below envy, 


above 


Oh wha wad leave this humble state, 


who would 


For a' the pride of a' the great ? 




Amid their flaring, idle toys, 




Amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys, 




Can they the peace and pleasure feel 




Of Bessy at her spinning-wheel ? 


[AME. 


NITHSDALE'S WELCOME I 


The noble Maxwells and their powers 




Are coming o'er the Border, 




And they'll gae bigg Terregles towers, 


go build 


And set them a' in order. 




And they declare Terregles fair, 




For their abode they choose it : 




There's no a heart in a' the land 




But's lighter at the news o*t. 





BURNS' SONGS. 



253 



Though stars in skies may disappear, 

And angry tempests gather, 
The happy hour may soon be near 

That brings us pleasant weather : 
The weary night o' care and grief 

May hae a joyful morrow; 
So dawning day has brought relief— 

Fareweel our night o' sorrow I * 



ha\a 



COUNTRY LASSrE. 
Tune— The Country Lass 

In simmer, when the hay was mawn, 

And corn waved green in ilka field, 
While claver blooms white o'er the lea, 

And roses blaw in ilka bield ; 
Blithe Bessie in the milking shiel, 

Says : " I'll be wed, come o't what will." 
Out spak a dame in wrinkled eild : 

" O' guid advisement comes nae ill. 

" It's ye hae wooers mony ane, 

And, lassie, ye're but young, ye ken 
Then wait a wee, and cannie wale 

A routhie butt, a routhie ben : 
There's Johnnie o' the Buskie Glen, 

Fu' is his barn, fu' is his byre ; 
Tak this frae me, my bonnie hen, 

It's plenty beets the luver's fire." 

" For Johnnie o* the Buskie Glen, 

I dinna care a single flie ; 
He loe3 sae weel his craps and kye, 

He has nae luve to spare for me : 
But blithe's the blink o' Robbie's ee. 

And, weel I wat, he loes me dear : 
Ae blink o' him I wadna gie 

For Buskie Glen and a' his gear. 

" O thoughtless lassie, life's a faught; 

The canniest gate, the strife is sail* 
But aye fou han't is fechtin best, 

A hungry care's an unco care. 
But some will spend, and some will spare, 

And wilfu' folk maun hae their will ; 
Syne as ye brew, my maiden fair, 

Keep mind that ye maun drink the yill." 

" O gear will buy me rigs o* land, 
And gear will buy me sheep and kye ; 

But the tender heart o' leesome luve 
The gowd and siller canna buy. 



mown 

every 

clover, field 

blow, every skelter 

hut 



have, many 

know 

little, quietly chose 

well-stored house 



from 
feeds 



well, crops, cows 

no 

eye 

well, know, loves 

one, wouldn't give 

wealth 

straggle 

quietest road, sore 

full-handed, fighting 

great 

must have 
then 
ale 

money 
cows 

happy 
gold, silver 



154 BURNS' SONGS. 



"We may be poor — Robbie and I, 

Light is the burden luve lays on ; 
Content and luve brings peace and joy — 

"What mair hae queens upon a throne ?" more have 



FAIR ELIZA. 

Turn again, thou fair Eliza, 

Ae kind blink before we part, on« 

Rue on thy despairing lover 1 repent 

Canst thou break his faithfu' heart ? 
Turn again, thou fair Eliza ; 

If to love thy heart denies, 
For pity hide the cruel sentence, 

Under friendship's kind disguise ! 

Thee, dear maid, hae I offended ? have 

The offence is loving thee : 
Canst thou wreck his peace for ever, 

Wha for thine wad gladly die ? who would 

While the life beats in my bosom, 

Thou shalt mix in ilka throe ; every 

Turn again, thou lovely maiden, 

Ae sweet smile on me bestow. 

Not the bee upon the blossom, 

In the pride o' sunny noon ; 
Not the little sporting fairy, 

All beneath the simmer moon ; summer 

Not the poet in the moment 

Fancy lightens on his ee, eye 

Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture knows 

That thy presence gies to me. gives 



LUVE WILL VENTURE IN. 

Tune— The Posie. 

O'luve will venture in where itdaurnaweelbe seen; daren't well 

) luve will venture in where wisdom ance has been; once 

But I will downyonriverrove,amongthewoodssae green — so 

And a' to pu J a posie to my ain dear May. pull, nosegay 

The Primrose I will pu', the firstling o' the year, 
And I will pu' the Pink, the emblem o' my dear ; 
For she's the pink o' womankind, and blooms without a peer — 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

Ill pu' the budding Rose, when Phoebus peeps in view, 
For it's like a baumy kiss o* her sweet bonnie mou' ; 
The Hyacinth for constancy, wi' its unchanging blue— 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 



BURNS' SONGS. 253 



The Lily it is pure, and the Lily it is fair. 
And in her lovely bosom I'll place the Lily there ; 
The Daisy's for simplicity and unaffected air — 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

The Hawthorn I will pu' wi' its locks o' siller gray, silver 

Where, like an aged man, it stands at break of day ; 
Butthesongster'snestwithinthebushlwinnatakaway — will not 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

The Woodbine I will pu' when the e'ening star is near, 
And the diamond drapso' dew shall be her e'en sae clear; eyes so 

The Violet'sfor modesty, which weel she fa's to wear — well, falls 

And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

I'll tie the posie round wi' the silken band o' luve, 
And I'll place it in her breast, and I'll swear by a' above, 
That to my latest draught o' life the band shall ne'er remove — 
And this shall be a posie to my ain dear May. 



THE BANKS OF DOON. 

Tuxe — Caledonian Hunt's Delight 

Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, 

How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ; go 

How can ye chant, ye little birds, 

And I sae weary fu' o' care 1 full 

Thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird, 

That wantons through the flowering thorn : 
Thou minds me o' departed joys, 

Departed — never to return ! 

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon, oft have 

To see the rose and woodbine twine ; 
And ilka bird sang o' its luve, every 

And fondly sae did I o' mine. 
Wi' -lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, 

Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree ; 
And my fause luver stole my rose, false 

But ah 1 he left the thorn wi' me. 



WILLIE WASTLE. 
Tune— Tlie Eight Men ofMoidart. 

Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed, dwelt 

The spot they called it Linkum-doddie ; 

Willie was a wabster guid, weaver good 

Could stown a clew wi' ony bodie. steal, any one 

He had a wife was dour and din, stubborn, dun 

Oh, Tinkler Madgie was her mither — tinker, mother 

Sic a wife as Willie had, such 

I wadna gie a button for her. would not give 



25« 



BURNS' SONGS. 



She has an ee — she has but ane, 

The cat has twa the very colour ; 
Five rusty teeth, forby-e a stump, 

A clapper-tongue wad deave a miller : 
A whiskin' beard about her mou*, 

Her nose and chin they threaten ither — 
Sic a wife as Willie had, 

I wadna gie a button for her. 

She's bough-houghed, she's hem-shinned 

Ae limpin' leg a hand-breed shorter ; 
She's twisted right, she's twisted left, 

To balance fair in ilka quarter : 
She has a hump upon her breast, 

The twin 0' that upon her shouther — 
Sic a wife as Willie had, 

I wadna gie a button for her. 

Auld baudrons by the ingle sits, 

And wi' her loof her face a-washin' ; 
But Willie r s* wife is na sae trig, 

She dights her grunzie wi' a hushion ; 
Her walie nieves like midden-creels, 

Her face wad fyle the Logan- Water- 
Sic a wife as Willie had, 

I wadna gie a button for her. 



eye, one 

two 

besides 

would, deafen 

each other 



breadtn 

each 

shouldei 



cat, fire 

palm 

not so tidy 

-ipes, mouth, cushion 

huge fist* 

would dirty 



• FLOW GENTLY, SWEET AFTON. 

Tune — The Yellow-haired Laddie. 

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise ; 
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 

Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds through the glen, 
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den, 
Thou green-crested lapwing thy screaming forbear, 
I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair. 

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills, 
Far marked with the courses of clear winding rills ; 
There daily I wander as noon rises high, 
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. 

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below, 

Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow ; 

There oft as mild evening weeps over the lea, green fields 

The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. birch 

Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides, 
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides ; 
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave, 
As gathering sweet flowerets she stems thy clear wa?e« 



BURNS' songs. 


1 
257 


Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays ; 

- Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 




THE SMILING SPRING, 




Tune— The Bonny Bell 




The smiling Spring comes in rejoicing, 

And surly Winter grimly flies ; 
Now crystal clear are the falling waters, 

And bonnie blue are the sunny skies. 
Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning, 

The evening gilds the ocean's swell ; 
All creatures joy in the sun's returning, 

And I rejoice in my bonnie Bell. 


The flowery Spring leads sunny Summer, 

And yellow Autumn presses near, 
Then in his turn comes gloomy Winter, 

Till smiling Spring again appear. 
Thus seasons dancing, life advancing, 

Old Time and Nature their changes tell, 
But never ranging, still unchanging, 

I adore my bonnie Bell. 




THE GALLANT WEAVER. 




Tune — The Weavers' Marc':,. 




Where Cart rins rowin to the sea. 
By mony a flower and spreading tree, 
There lives a lad, the lad for me, 
He is a gallant weaver. 


rolling 

many 


I had wooers audit or nine, 
They gied me rings and ribbons fine ; 
And I was feared my heart would tine, i 
And I gied it to the weaver. 


eight 

gave 

if raid, be lost 


My daddie signed my tocher-band, 

To gie the lad that has the land ; 

But to my heart I'll add my hand, 

,And gie it to the weaver. 


dowry-bond 
give 


While birds rejoice in leafy bowers ; 
While bees delight in opening flowers ; 
While corn grows green in simmer showers, 
I'll love my gallant weaver. 


summer 



258 BURNS' SONGS. 


SHE'S FAIR AND FAUSE. 




Tuke— She's Fair and Fame. 




She's fair and fause that causes my smart, 

I loed her meikle and lang ; 
She's broken her vow, she's broken my heart, 

And I may e'en gae hang. 


false 
loved, much 

go 


A coof cam in wi' routh o' gear, fool, 
And I hae tint my dearest dear ; 
But woman is but warld's gear, 
Sae let the bonnie lass gang. 


abundance, wealth 

have lost 

world's 

go 


Whae'er ye be that woman love, 

To this be never blind — 
Nae ferlie 'tis though fickle she prove, 

A woman has't by kind. 


wonder 


woman, lovely woman fair ! 
An angel form's fa'n to thy share, 
'T wad been ower meikle to gien thee mair— 
I mean an angel mind. 


'twould, too, 
[given, more 


MY WIFE'S A WINSOME WEE THING. 


She is a winsome wee thing, 
She is a handsome wee thing, 
She is a bonnie wee thing, 
This sweet wee wife o' mine. 


winning 


I never saw a fairer, 

I never loed a dearer ; 

And neist my heart I'll wear her, 

For fear my jewel tine, 


loved 
next 
lose 


leeze me on my wee thing, 
My bonnie blithesome wee thing ; 
Sae lang's I hae my wee thing, 
I'll think my lot divine. 


blessings 
so long, have 


Though warld's care we share o't, 
And may see meikle mair o't ; 
Wi' her I'll blithely bear it, 
And ne'er a word repine. 


world's 
mud more 


HIGHLAND MARY. 




Tune — Katharine Ogie. 




Ye banks, and braes, and streams around 

The castle o' Montgomery, 
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, 

Your waters never drumlie ! 


muddy 





burns' songs. 


259 




There Simmer first unfauldyour robes, 


summer, unfold i 




And there the langest tarry ; 


longest 




For there I took the last fareweel 






0' my sweet Highland Mary. 






How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk, 


birch 




How rich the hawthorn's blossom, 






As underneath their fragrant shade, 






I clasp*d her to my bosom 1 






The golden hours, on angel wings, 






Flew o'er me and my dearie ; 






For dear to me, as light and life, 






"Was my sweet Highland Mary. 






Wi' monie a vow, and loek'd embrace, 


many 




Our parting was fu' tender ; 






And, pledging aft to meet again, 


oft 




We tore oursels asunder ; 






But oh ! fell death's untimely frost, 






That nipt my flower sae early ! 


so 




Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay, 


cold 




That wraps my Highland Mary ! 






O pale, pale now, those rosy lips, 






I aft hae kiss'd sae fondly ! 


hav$ 




And closed for aye the sparkling glance, 






That dwelt on me sae kindly ! 






And mould'ring now in silent dust, 






That heart that lo'ed me dearly ! 






But still within my bosom's core 






Shall live my Highland Mafy. 






MY AIN KIND DEARIE. 






Tune— The Lea-Rig. 






When o'er the hill the eastern star 






Tells bughtin time is near, my jo ; 


sheep-foldins 




And owsen frae the furrowed field 


oxen from 




Return sae dowf and weary : 


lethargic 




Down by the burn, where scented birks, 


birches 




Wi' dew are hanging clear, my jo, 






I'll meet thee on the lea-rig, 


shelter'd field 




My ain kind dearie 0. 


own 



In mirkest glen, at midnight hour, darkest 

I'd rove, and ne'er be eerie 0, fearful 

If through that glen I gaed to thee, went 

My ain kind dearie, O. 
Although the night were ne'er sae wild, . so 

And I were ne'er sae wearie O, wear/ 

I'd meet thee on the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie 0. 



860 BURNS' SONGS. 


The hunter loes the morning sun, 


love* 


To rouse the mountain deer, my jo : 




At. noon the fisher seeks the glen, 




Along the burn to steer, my jo ; 


move 


Gie me the hour o' gloamin gray, 


gi re, twilight 


It maks my heart sae cheery 0, 


so 


To meet thee on the lea-rig, 




My ain kind dearie 0. 




AULD ROB MORRIS. 


There's auld Rob Morris that wons in yon glen, 


dwells 


He's the king o' guid fellows and wale o' auld men ; 


choice 


He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine, 


gold, oxen 


■ And ae bonnie lassie, his darling and mine. 


one 


She's fresh as the morning,'*the fairest in May ; 




She's sweet as the evening amang the new hay ; 




As blithe and as artless as the lambs on the lea, 


pasture 


And dear to my heart as the light to my ee. 


eye 


But oh I she's an heiress, auld Robin's a laird, 




And my d addie has nought but a cot-house andy ard 




A wooer like me maunna hope to come speed, 


must not 


The wounds I must hide that will soon be my deid. 


death 


The day comes to me, but delight brings me nane; 


none 


The night comes to me, but my rest it is gane ; 


gone 


I wander my lane like a night-troubled ghaist, 


alone, ghost 


And I sigh as my heart it would burst in my breast. 


would 


had she but been of a lower degree, 




I then might hae hoped she wad smiled upon me 1 


have 


how past descriving had then been my bliss, 


describing 


As now my distraction no words can express 1 




DUNCAN GRAY. 




Duncan Gray cam here to woo, 


came 


Ha, ha, the wooing o't, 




On blithe Yule-night when we were fou', 


Christmas 


Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 




Maggie coost her head fu' high, 


raised 


Looked asklent and unco skeigh, sideways 


very disdainful 


Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh ; 


made, aloof 


Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 




Duncan fleeched, and Duncan prayed ; 


flattered 


Ha, ha, the wooing o't ; 




Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig, (a rock in the Clyde) 


Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 




Duncan signed baith out and in, 


both 


Grat his een baith bl'eert and blin', 


wept, eyes both 


Spak o' lowpin' owre a linn ; 


Jumping 


Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 






Duncan £LeechecL, axi-cL '[hmr.a-n jrayeo.; 



^teg" Trias cLea£ as AiLsa Or a 
la, la, the -wrooiae o't. 



p-?60 



burns' songs. 


261 


Time and chance are but a tide, 




Ha, ha, the wooing o't ; 




Slighted love is sair to bide, 


sore, bear 


Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 




Shall I, like a fool, quoth he, 




For a haughty hizzie die ? 


jade 


She may gae to — France for me 1 


go 


Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 




How it comes let doctors tell, 




Ha, ha, the wooing o't ; 




Meg grew sick — as he grew hale, 


whole 


Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 




Something in her bosom wrings, 




For relief a sigh she brings ; 




And oh, her een, they spak sic things ! 


spoke, such 


Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 




Duncan was a lad o' grace, 




Ha, ha, the wooing o't ; 




Maggie's was a piteous case, 




Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 




Duncan couldna be her death, 


could not 


Swelling pity smoored his wrath ; 


smothered 


Now they're crouse and canty baith; lively, happy both 


Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 




HERE'S A HEALTH TO THEM THAT'S AW A. 


Tune— Here's a Health to them thafs awa. 




Here's a health to them that's awa, 


away 


Here's a health to them that's awa ; 




And wh a winn a wish guid luck to our c ause, 


who wont, good 


May never guid luck be their fa' ! 


fate 


It's guid to be merry and wise, 


good 


It's guid to be honest and true, 




It's guid to support Caledonia's cause, 




And bide by the buff and the blue. 


(Whig colours) 


Here's a health to them that's awa, 




Here's a health to them that's awa ; 




Here's a health to Charlie, the chief o' the clan, 


(Fox) 


Although that his band be sma.' 




May liberty meet wi' success ! 




May prudence protect henfrae ill ! 


from 


May tyrants and tyranny tine in the mist, 


be lost 


And eveb keep wandering still. 




Here's a health to them that's awa, 




Here's a health to them that's awa ; 




Kore's ahealth to Tammie, the Norland laddie, 


(Lord Erskine) 


That lives at the lug o' the law ! 





262 BURNS' SONGS. 


Here's freedom to him that wad read, 


would 


Here's freedom to him that wad write ! 




There's nane ever feared that the truth should be heard, 


But they wham the truth wad indite. 


whom, accuse 


Here's a health to them that's awa, 




Here's a health to them that's awa ; 




Here's Chieftain M'Leod, a chieftain worth gowd, 


gold 


Though bred among mountains o' snaw 1 


snow 


Here's friends on both sides of the Forth, 




And friends on both sides of the Tweed ; 




And wha wad betray old Albion's rights, 


who would 


May they never eat of her bread. 




POORTITH CAULD. 


Tune — Cauld Kail in Aberdeen. 




poortith cauld, and restless love, 


poverty, cold 


Ye wreck my peace between ye ; 




Yet poortith a' I could forgive, 




An 'twere na for my Jeanie. 


not 


why should Fate sic pleasure have, 


such 


Life's dearest bands untwining ? 




Or why sae sweet a flower as love, 


so 


Depend on Fortune's shining ? 




This warld's wealth, when I think on 


world's 


Its pride, and a' the lave o't ; 


rest 


Fie, fie on silly coward man 




That he should be the slave o't I 




why, &o. 




Her een sae bonnie blue betray 


eyes 


How she repays my passion ; 




But prudence is her o'erword, aye repetition, always 


She talks of rank and fashion. 




why, &c. 




wha can prudence think upon, 


who 


And sic a lassie by him ? 




wha can prudence think upon, 




And sae in love as I am ? 




why, &c. 




How blest the humble cotter's fate ! 


* 


He woos his simple dearie ; 




The silly bogles, wealth and state, 


ghosts 


Can never make them eerie. 


timorous 


why, &c. 




GALA WATER. 


There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, 




That wander through the blooming heather 


f 


But Yarrow braes, nor Ettrick shaws, 


woods 


Can match the lads o' Gala Water. 





burns' songs. 


263 


Dut there is ane, a secret ane, 
Aboon them a' I loe him better ; 

And I'll be his and he'll be mine, 
The bonnie lad o* Gala Water. 


one 
above, love 


Although his daddie was nae laird, 

And though I hae na meikle tocher; have 
Yet rich in kindness, truest love, 

We'll tent our flocks by Gala Water. 


no 
much dower 

tend 


It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth, 
That coft contentment, peace, or pleasure ■ 

The bands and bliss o' mutual love, 
that's the chiefest warld's treasure ! 


bought 
world's 


LORD GREGORY. 




MIRK, mirk is this midnight hour, 
And loud the tempest's roar ; 

A waefu' wanderer seeks thy tower, 
Lord Gregory, ope thy door. 


dark 
. woeful 


An exile frae her father's ha', 
And a' for loving thee ; 

At least some pity on me shaw, 
If love it may na be. 


from 
* show 


Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grove 

By bonnie Irwine side, 
Where first I owned that virgin-love 

I iang, lang had denied ? 


long 


How aft en didst thou pledge and vow 
Thou wad for aye be mine ; 

And my fond heart, itsel' sae true, 
It ne'er mistrusted thine. 


often 

would 

so 


Hard is thy heart, Lord Gregory, 

And flinty is thy breast : 
Thou dart of heaven that flashest by, 

wilt thou give me rest ! 




Ye mustering thunders from above 

Your willing victim see ! 
But spare and pardon my fause love, 

His wrangs to Heaven and me ! 


false 
wrongs 


OPEN THE DOOR TO ME, OH! 




* open the door, some pity to show, 
open the door to me, oh ! 
Though thou hast been false, I'll ever prove true. 
open the door to me, oh 

i 



164 BURNS' SONGS. 



•• Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek, cold 

But caulder thy love for me, oh ! 
The frost that freezes* the life at my heart, 
Is nought to my pains frae thee, oh I from 

u The wan moon is setting behind the white wave, 
And time is setting with me, oh ! 
False friends, false love, farewell ! for mair more 

I'll ne'er trouble them, nor thee, oh ! " 

She has opened the door, she has opened it wide ; 
She see's his pale corse on the plain, oh ! 
" My true love !" she cried, and sank down by his side, 
Never to rise again, oh I 



YOUNG JESSIE. 
Tune — Bonnie Dundee, 

True-hearted was he, the sad swain of the Yarrow, 

And fair are the maids on the banks o' the Ayr, 
• But by the sweet side o' the Nith's winding river, 

Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair : 
To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all oyer; 

To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain ; 
Grace, beauty, and elegance fetter her lover, . 

And maidenly modesty fixes the chain. 

O fresh is the rose in the gay dewy morning, 

And sweet is the lily at evening close ; 
But in the fair presence o' lovely young Jessie 

Unseen is the lily, unheeded the rose. 
Love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring ; 

Enthroned in her een he delivers his law : eyes 

And still to her charms she alone is a stranger — 

Her modest demeanour's the jewel of a' 1 



THE SOLDIER'S RETURN. 
Am—The Mill, Mill 0. 

When wild war's deadly blast was blawn, blown 

And gentle peace returning, 
Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless, 

And mony a widow mourning : * many 

I left the lines and tented field, 

Where lang I'd been a lodger, long 

My humble knapsack a' my wealth, 

A poor but honest sodger. soldier 

A leal, light heart was in my breast, true 

My hand unstained wi' plunder : 
And for fair Scotia, hame again, home 

I cheery on did wander. 
I thought upon the banks o* Coil, 

I thought upon my Nancy ; 




Tlxe ^recrs aze o'er, a.iLcL lia coTiie jiaxae. 

AxlcL find- tkee sixll -tru.e [keartecL: 
ITicrn-gh. -poox in. geax. -we'xe idch. in. lcnre. 

And- -rnaT-r Tre'se ZLe'ex Tae ;pan?"tecL 

-p. 265 



BURNS SONGS. 



T thought upon the witching smile 
That caught my youthful fancy. 

At length I reached the bonnie glen 

Where early life I sported ; 
I passed the mill, and trysting thorn, 

Where Nancy aft I courted : 
Wha spied I but my ain dear maid 

Down by her mother's dwelling ! 
And turned me round to hide the flood 

That in my een was swelling. 

Wi' altered voice, quoth I, c ' Sweet lass, 
Sweet as yon hawthorn's blossom, 

happy, happy may he be, 
That's dearest to thy bosom ! 

My purse is light, I've far to^gang, 
And fain would be thy lodger ; 

I've served my king and country lang — 
Take pity on a sodger I " 

Sae wistfully she gazed on me, 

And lovelier was than ever ; 
Quo' she, " A sodger ance I loed, 

Forget him shall I never : 
Our humble cot and hamely fare 

Ye freely shall partake o't ; 
That gallant badge, the dear cockade, 

Ye're welcome for the sake o't. 

She gazed — she reddened like a rose — 

Syne pale like ony lily ; 
She«sank within my arms, and cried, 

" Art thou my ain dear Willie ? " 
* By Him who made yon sun and sky, 

By whom true love's regarded, 

1 am the man ; and thus may still 
True lovers be rewarded. 

;< The wars are o'er, and I'm come hame, 

And find thee still true-hearted ! 
Though poor in gear, we're rich in love, 

And mair, we'se ne'er be parted." 
Quo' she, " My grandsire left me gowd, 

A mailen plenished fairly ; 
'And come, my faithfu' sodger lad, 

Thou'rt welcome to it dearly." 

For gold the merchant ploughs the main, 

The farmer ploughs the manor ; 
But glory is the sodger's prize, 

The sodger's wealth is honour. 
The brave poor sodger ne'er despise, 

Nor count him as a stranger ; 
Remember he's his country's stay 

Tn day and hour of danger. 



meeting 
who saw, own 

eyes 



5TO 

long 
soldier 

80 

once, loved 
homely 



then, any 



money 
more 
gold 
farm 



266 



BURNS SONG?. 



WANDERING WILLIE. 

Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie, 
Here awa, there awa, haud awa hame ; 

Come to my bosom, my ain only dearie, 
Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. 

Winter winds blew loud and cauld at our parting, 
Fears for my "Willie brought tears in my ee ; 

Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie, 
The simmer to nature, my Willie to me. 

Rest, ye wild storms, in the cave of your slumbers, 
How your dread howling a lover alarms! 

Wauken, ye breezes ! row gently, ye billows ! 
And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms ! 

But oh, if he's faithless, and minds na his Nannie, 
Flow still between us, thou wide-roaring main ! 

May I never see it, may I never trow it, 
But, dying, believe that my Willie's my ain. 



hither, thither 
keep 
own 

cold 



awaken 
once more 



not 



belie ro 
own 



MEG 0' THE MILL. 

Aie— Bonnie Lass, wiTl you lie in, a Barrack f 

ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten ? know 

And ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten ? 
She has gotten a coof wi' a claut o' siller, fool, lot, money 

And broken the heart o' the barley Miller. 

The Miller was strappin', the Miller was ruddy ; 

A heart like a lord, and a hue like a lady : 

The Laird was a widdiefu', bleerit knurl; — pitiful, dwarf 

She's left the*guid fellow and taen the ehurl. good, taken 

The Miller he hecht her a heart leal and loving; offered, true 

The Laird did address her wi' matter more moving, 
A fine pacing horse wi' a clear chained bridle, 
A whip by her side, and a bonnie side-saddle. 

wae on the siller, it is sae prevailing ! woe, so 

And wae on the love that. is fixed on a mailen ! farm 

A tocher's nae word in a true lover's parle, dower, no 

But gie me my love, and a fig for the warl ! give, world 



ADDRESS TO DUMOURIER. 

Tune — Rodin Adair. 

You're welcome to Despots, Dumourier ; 
You're welcome to Despots, Dumourier, 

How does Dampierre do ? 

Ay, and Beurnonville too ? 
Why did they not come along with you, 
Dumourier ? 



burns' songs. 



I will fight France "with you, Dumourier; 

I will fight France with you, Diynourier; 
I will fight France with you, 
I will take my chance with you ; 

By my soul, I'll dance a dance with you, 
Dumourier. 

Then let us fight about, Dumourier ; 

Then let us fight about, Dumourier; 
Then let us fight about, 
Till freedom's spark is out, 

Then we'll be killed, no doubt — 

Dumourier. 



FAREWELL, THOU STREAM THAT WINDING FLOWS. 

Farewell, thou stream that winding flows 
Around Eliza's dwelling ! 

mem'ry 1 spare the cruel throes 
Within my bosom swelling . 

Condemned to drag a hopeless chain, 

And yet in secret languish, 
To feel a fire in every vein, 

Nor dare disclose my anguish. 

Love's veriest wretch} unseen, unknown, 

I fain my griefs would cover : 
The bursting sigh, the unweeting groan, 

Betray the hapless lover. 

1 know thou doom'st me to despair, 
Nor wilt, nor canst relieve me ; 

But, oh ! Eliza, hear one prayer, 
For pity's sake forgive me 1 

The music of thy voice I heard, 

Nor wist while it enslaved me ; 
I saw thine eyes, yet nothing feared, 

Till fears no more had saved me. 
Th' unwary sailor thus aghast, 

The wheeling torrent viewing, 
•Mid circling horrors sinks at last 

In overwhelming ruin. 



BLITHE IIAE I BEEN ON YON HILL, 

Tune — Liggeram Cosh. 

Blithe hae I been on yon hill, 

As the lambs before me ; 
Careless ilka thought and free, each 

As the breeze flew o'er me : 
Now nae longer sport and play, no 

Mirth or sang can please me ; song 

Lesley is sae fair and coy, *c 

Care and q.nsruish seize met 



26R 


BURNS' SONGS. 






Heavy, heavy is the task, 
Hopeless love declaring ; 






Trembling, I downocht bat glower, 


can, do nothing > 




Sighing, dumb, despairing I 


[stani 




If she winna ease the thraws 


will not, pang's 




In my bosom swelling, 






Underneath the grass-green sod, 




■ 


Soon maun be my dwelling. 


in si 


LOGAN BRAES. 




Tune — Logan Water, 






Logan, sweetly didst thou glide, 






That day I was my Willie's bride ! 






And years sinsyne hae o'er us run, 


since then Ia\ 




Like Logan to the simmer sun. 


sum en i 




But now thy flowery banks appear 






Like drumlie winter, dark and drear, 


gloom? 




While my dear lad maun face his faes, 


must, f oex 




Far, far frae me and Logan braes. 


from 




Again the merry month o* May 






Has made our hills and valleys gay ; 






The birds rejoice in leafy bowers, 






The bees hum round the breathing flowci 


o : 




Blithe morning lifts his*rosy eye, 






And evening's tears are tears of joy : 






My soul, delightless, a' surveys, 






While Willie's far frae Logan braes. 






Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush, 






Amang her nestlings sits the thrush ; 


&do< e 




Her faithfu' mate will share her toil, 






Or wi' his songs her cares beguile : 






But I wi' my sweet nurslings here, 






Nae mate to help, nae mate to cheer, 


no 




Pass widowed nights and joyless days, 






AVhile Willie's far frae Logan braes. 






wae upon you, men o* state, 


WW 




That brethren rouse to deadly hate ! 






As ye make many a fond heart mourn, 






Sae may it on your heads return ! 






How. can your flinty hearts enjoy 






The widow's tear, the orphan's cry ? 






But soon may peace bring happy days, 






And Willie hame to Logan braes ! 


FAIR. 


OH WERE MY LOVE YON LILAC 




Tmv—LTughie Graham, 






were my love yon lilac fair, 






Wi' purple blossoms to the spring ; 






And I, a bird to shelter there, 






When wearied on my little wing'l 





burns' songs. 


26$ 


How I wad mourn, wh«n it was torn 
By Autumn wild, and Winter rude I 

But I wad sing on wanton wing 
When youthfu' May its bloom renewed. 


would 


gin my love were yon red rose, 
That grows upon the castle wa' ; 

And I mysel' a drap o' dew, 
Into her bonnie breast to fa' ! 


that 
drop 


there, beyond expression blest, 
I'd feast on beauty a' the night ; 

Sealed on her silk-saft faulds to rest, 
Till fleyed awa by Phoebus* light ! 


•2< i' u folds 

frighted 


BONNIE JEAN. 


There was a lass, and. she was fair," 
At kirx and market to be seen ; 

When a' the fairest maids were met, 
The fairest maid was bonnie Jean. 




And aye she wrought her mammie's wark, 
And aye she sang sae merrilie : 

The blithest bird upon the bush 
Had ne'er a lighter heart than she. 


worli 
so 


But hawks will rob the tender joys 
That bless the little lintwhite's nest ; 

And frost will blight the fairest flowers, 
And love will break the soundest rest. 


linnets 


Young Robie was the brawest lad, 
The flower and pride of a' the glen ; 

And he had owsen, sheep, and kye, 
And wanton naigies nine or ten. 


oxen, kme 
horses 


He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryste, 
He danced wi' Jeanie on the down ; 

And lang ere witless Jeanie wist, 
Her heart was tint, her peace was stown. 


went, meeting 

knew 
lost, stolen 


As in the bosom o' the stream 

The moonbeam dwells at dewy e'en, 

So trembling, pure, was tender love 
Within the breast o' bonnie Jean. 


even 


And now she works her mammie's wark, 
And aye she sighs wi' care and pain ; 

Yet wist na what her ail might be, 
Or what wad mak her weel again. 


ailment 
would, well 


But did na Jeanie's heart loup light, 
And did na joy blink in her ee, 

As Robie tauld a tale o' lore 
Ae e'enin on the lily lea ? 


jump 
eye 
told 

<Srf 



I/O BURNS' songs. 



The sun was sinking in the west, 

The birds sang sweet in ilka grove ; every 

His cheek to hers he fondly prest, 

And whispered thus his tale o' love : 

" Jeanie fair, I loe thee dear ; 
canst thou think to fancy me ; 
Or wilt thou leave thy mammie's cot, 

And learn to tent the farms wi' me ? tend 

M At barn or byre thou shalt na drudge, not 

Or naething else to trouble thee ; nothing 

But stray amang the heather-bells, 
And tent the waving corn wi' me." 

Now what could artless Jeanie do ? 

She had nae will to say him na ; nc 

At length she blushed a sweet consent, 

And love was aye between them twa. fcs-fl 

t 



PHILLIS THE FAIR. 
Tune — Rolin Adair 

While larks with little wing 

Fanned the pure air, 
Tasting the breathing spring, 

Forth I did fare : 
Gay the sun's golden eye 
Peeped, o'er the mountains high ; 
Such thy morn ! did I cry, 

Phillis the fair. 

In each bird's careless song, 

Glad did I share ; 
While yon wild-flowers among, 

Chance led me there : 
Sweet to the opening day, 
Rosebuds bent the dewy spray ; 
Such thy bloom ! did I say, 

Phillis the fair. 

Down in a shady walk 

Doves cooing were ; 
I marked the cruel hawk 

Caught in a snare : 
So kind may fortune be, 
Such make his destiny, 
He who would injure thee. 

Phillis the fair. 



BURNS' SONGS. 27i 

HAD I A CAVE. 

Tune — Robin Adair. 

Had I a cave on some wild distant shore, 
Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar* 

There would I weep my woes, 

There seek my lost repose, 

Till grief my eyes should close, 
Ne'er to wake more ! 

Falsest of womankind 1 canst thou declare, 
All thy fond-plighted vows — fleeting as air ! 

To thy new lover hie, 

Laugh o'er thy perjury ; 

Then in thy bosom try 
What peace is there ! 



BY ALLAN STREAM I CHANCED TO ROVE. 

Tune — Allan Water. 

By Allan stream I chanced to rove, 

While Phoebus sank beyond Benledi ; 
The winds were whispering through the grove, 

The yellow corn was waving ready : 
I listened to a lover's sang, song 

And thought on youth fu' pleasures mony ; many 

And aye the wild-wood echoes rang — 

Oh, dearly do I love thee, Annie 1 

Oh, happy be the woodbine bower^ 

Nae nightly bogle make it eerie ; ghost, dismal 

Nor ever sorrow stain the hour, 

The place and time I met my dearie I 
Her head upon my throbbing breast, 

She, sinking, said, " I'm thine for ever J" 
While mony a kiss the seal imprest, 

The sacred vow, we ne'er should sever. 

The haunt o' Spring's the primrose brae, 

The Simmer joys the flocks to follow; 
How cheery through her shortening day, 

Is Autumn, in her weeds o' yellow 1 
But can they melt the glowing heart, 

Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure ? 
Or through each nerve the rapture dart. 

Like meeting her, our bosom's treasure ? 



WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD. 
Tune — Whistle, and I'll come to you, my Lad 

O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad, 

O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad"; 

Though father and mither and a' should gae mad, gc 

O whistle, and I'll ceme to you, my lad. 



J72 BURNS' S0N<3S. 



But warily tent, when ye come to court me, take care 

And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee ; gate, ajar 

Syne up the back-stile, and let naebody see, then 

And come as ye were na comin' to me. not 

At kirk, or at market, whene'er you meet me, 

Gang by me as though that ye cared nae a flie ; go, not 

But steal me a blink o' your bonnie black ee, eye 
Yet look as ye were na lookin' at me. 

Aye row and protest that ye care na for me, 

.And whiles ye may lichtlie my beauty a wee ; slight 

But court na anither, though jokin' ye be, 

For fear that she wile your fancy frae me. froai 



ADOWN WINDING NITH I DID WANDER. 
Tune — The Mucking o y Geordie's Byre. 

Adown winding Nith I did wander, 

To mark the sweet flowers as they spring ; 

Adown winding Nith I did wander, 
Of Phillis to muse and to sing. 

CHORUS. 

Awa wi' your belles and your beauties, nway 

They never wi' her can compare : 
Whaever has met wi' my Phillis, 

Has met wi' the queen o' the fair. 

The daisy amused my fond fancy, 

So artless, so simple, so wild ; 
Thou emblem, said I, o' my Phillis ! 

For she is simplicity's child. 

The rose-bud's the blush o' my charmer, 

Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis prest : 
How fair and how pure is the lily, 

But fairer and purer her breast. 

Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour, 

They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie : 
Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine, 

Its dew-drop o' diamond her eye. 

Her voice is the song of the morning, 

That wakes through the green-spreading grova, 

When Phoebus peeps over the mountains, 
On music, and pleasure, and love. 

But, beauty, how frail and how fleeting — 

The bloom of a fine summer's day 1 
While worth in the mind o' my Phillis 

Will flourish without a decay*. 







mcakntea. oiOy oil a little 3>o:n.ejr, stmck De Bahxm. 
-with. Ids "bal£Le-ax:e so tenable a "blow- -that l_e \ras ircrleci 
j the gro-uria. 

Lay the prcrad. TLsurpers ±o^- 
3yrsEO±s iaH in. es^eny foe 

- 



burns' songs. 


278 


COME, LET ME TAKE THEE TO MY 


BREAST. 


Aie — Cauld Kail. 




Come, let me take thee to my breast, 

And pledge we ne'er shall sunder ; 
And I shall spurn as vilest dust 

The warld's wealth and grandeur : 
And do I hear my Jeanie own 

That equal transports move her ? 
I ask for dearest life alone 

That I may live to love her. 


world'i 


Thus in my arms, wi' all thy charms, 

I clasp my countless treasure ; 
I'll seek nae mair o' heaven to share, 

Than sic a moment's pleasure : 
And by thy een sae bonnie blue, 

I swear I'm thine for ever ! 
And on thy lips I seal my vow, 

And break it shall I never ! 


no more 
such 
eyes 


BRUCE TO HIS MEN AT BANNOCKBURN. 


Tunk— Hey, tutiie taitie. 




Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, 
Welcome to your gory bed, 
Or to victory 1 


who have 
whom, often 


Now's the day, and now's the hour ; 
See the front o' battle lour : 
See approach, proud Edward's power- 
Chains and slavery ! 




Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
Wha sae base as be a slave ? 

Let him turn and flee ! 




Wha for Scotland's king and law 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
Freeman stand, or freeman fa', 
Let him follow me 1 


fall 


By oppression's woes and pains ! 
By your sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 
But they shall be free ! 

Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
Liberty's in every blow !— 
Let us do or dee. 


die 







274 BURNS SONGS. 

BEHOLD THE HOUR. 
Tune — Oran Gaoil. 
Behold the hour, the boat arrive ; 

Thou goest, thou darling of my heart 
Severed from thee, can I survive ? 

But fate has willed, and we must part. 
I'll often greet this surging swell, 

Yon distant isle will often hail : 
" E'en here I took the last farewell ; 

There latest marked her vanished sail.*'" 
Along the solitary shore, 

While flitting sea-fowl round me cry, 
Across the rolling, dashing roar, 

111 westward turn my wistful eye : 
Happy thou Indian grove, I'll say, 

Where now my Nancy's path may be ! 
While through thy sweets she loves to stray, 

Oh, fell me, does she muse on me ? 



DOWN THE BURN, DAVIE. 

As down the burn they took their way, 

And through the flowery dale ; 
His cheek to hers he aft did lay, ofs 

And love was aye the tale. always 

With u Mary, when shall we return, 

Sic pleasure to renew ?" such 

Quoth Mary : " Love, I like the burn, 

And aye shall follow you." 



THOU HAST LEFT ME EVER. 

Tune — Fee him, Father. 

Thou hast left me ever, Jamie 1 thou hast left me ever ; 
Thou hast left me ever, Jamie ! thou hast left me ever : 
Aften hast thou vowed that death only should us sever ; oft 

Now thou'st left thy lass for aye — I maun see thee never, Jamie, 
I'll see thee never. 

Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie ! thou hast me forsaken ; 
Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie ! thou hast me forsaken : 
Thou canst love anither jo, while my heart is breaking ; lover 
Soon my weary een I'll close — never mair to waken, Jamie, eyes 
Ne'er mair to waken ! more 



WHERE ARE THE JOYS? 
Tune — Saw ye my Father ? 

Where are the joys I have met in the morning, 
That danced to the lark's early song ? 

Where is the peace that awaited my wandering. 
At evening the wild-woods among ? 



BUHNS' SONGS. 



275 



No more a-winding the course of yon rirer, 
And marking sweet flowerets so fair ; 

No more I trace the light footsteps of pleasure, 
But sorrow and sad sighing care. 

Is it that Summer's forsaken our valleys, 

And grim, surly Winter is near ? 
No, no ! the bees humming round the gay rose&, 

Proclaim it the pride of the year. 

Fain would I hide what I fear to discover, 
Yet long, long too well have I known, 

All that has caused this wreck in my bosom 
Is Jenny, fair Jenny alone. 

Time cannot aid me, my griefs are immortal, 

Not hope dare a comfort bestow : 
Come, then, enamoured and fond of my anguish, 

Enjoyment I'll seek in my wo. 



DELUDED SWAIN, THE PLEASURE, 
Tune— The Cottiers Bonnie Lassie. 

Deluded swain, the pleasure 
The fickle fair can give thee, 

Is but a fairy treasure — 
Thy hopes will soon deceive thee. 

The billows on the ocean, 

The breezes idly roaming, 
The clouds' uncertain motion — 

They are but types of woman. 

Oh ! art thou not ashamed 

To dote upon a feature ? 
If man thou would'st be named, 

Despise the silly creature. 

Go, find an honest fellow ; 

Good claret set before thee : 
Hold on till thou art mellow, 

And then to bed in glory. 



MY SPOUSE NANCY. 
Tune — My Joe Janet 

u Husband, husband, cease your strife, 
Nor longer idly rave, sir ; 
Though I am your wedded wife, 
Yet I am not your slave, sir.' 5 

s One of two must still obey, 
Nancy, Nancy ; 



f7« 


BURNS SONGS. 




1 


Is it man, or woman, say, 
My spouse, Nancy ?" 

° If 'tis still the lordly word, 
Service and obedience ; 
I'll desert my sovereign lord, 
And so good-by allegiance !" 

" Sad will I be, so bereft, 
Nancy, Nancy ; 
Yet I'll try to make a shift, 
My spouse, Nancy." 

" My poor heart then break it must, 
My last hour I'm near it : 
When you lay me in the dust, 
Think, think how you will bear it." 

" I will hope and trust in Heaven, 
Nancy, Nancy ; 






Strength to bear it will be given, 


«. 




My spouse, Nancy." 






" Well, sir, from the silent dead, 






Still I'll try to daunt you ; 






Ever round your midnight bed 






Horrid sp'rites shall haunt you." 






" I'll wed another like my dear, 






Nancy, Nancy ; 






Then the sp'rites will fly for fear, 






My spouse, Nancy." 






THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS. 






Tune-— Lass of Inverness. 






The lovely lass o' Inverness, 






Nae joy nor pleasure can she see ; 


no 




For e'en and morn she cries, alas ! 






And aye the saut tear blin's her ee ; salt. 


blinds, eye 




Drumossio Moor — Drumossie-day — 






A waeful day it was to me ! 


woeM 




For there I lost my father dear — 






- My father dear, and brethren three. 






Their winding sheet the bluidy clay, 


bloody 




Their graves are growing green to see ; 






And by them lies the dearest lad 






That ever blest a woman's ee ! 


eye 




Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord, 
A bluidy man I trow thou be ; 


woe 




For mony a heart thou hast made sair, 


many, sore 




That ne'er did wrong to thine or thee. 











BURNS' SONGS. 



277 



A RED, RED ROSE. 

Tune — Graham's Strathspey. 

my luve's like a red, red rose, 
That's newly sprung in June : 

my luve's like the melodic, 
That's sweetly played in tune. 

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, 

So deep in luve am I : 
And I will luve thee still, my dear, 

Till a' the seas gang dry. 

Till a' the seas gang aVy, my dear, 
And the rocks melt wi' the sun ; 

1 will love thee still, my dear, 
While the sands o' life shall run. 

And fare thee weel, my only luve 1 
And fare thee weel awhile I 

And I will come again, my luve, 
Though it were ten thousand mile. 



love 



go 



OUT OVER THE FORTH. 

Tune — Charlie Gordon's welcome hamt. 

Out over the Forth I look to the north, 

But what is the north and its Highlands to me ? 

The south nor the east gie ease to my breast, 
The far foreign land, or the wild rolling sea. 

But I look to the west, when I gae to rest, 

That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be ; 

For far in the west lives he I loe best, 
The lad that is dear to my babie and me. 



give 



go 



LOUIS, WHAT RECK I BY THEE ? 
Tune — Louis, what reck I by thee t 

Louis, what reck I by thee, 

Or Geordie on his ocean ? 
Dyvor, beggar loons to me — bankrupt, fellows 

I reign in Jeanie's bosom. 

Let her crown my love her law, 

And in her breast enthrone me : 
Kings and nations — swith, awa 1 sooth, away 

Reif randies, I disown ye 1 thief-beggars 



SOMEBODY! 
Tune — For the, sake of Somebody, 

My heart is sair — I dare na tell— 
My heart is sair for somebody ; 



278 BURNS' SONGS. 

I could wake a winter night 

For the sake of somebody. 

Oh-hon ! for somebody I 

Oh-hey ! for somebody ! 

I could range the world around, 

For the sake o' somebody ! 

Ye powers that smile on virtuous love, 

O sweetly smile on somebody ! 
Prae ilka danger keep him free, from every 

And send me safe my somebody ! 
Oh-hon ! for somebody ! 
Oh-hey I for somebody I 
I wad do — what wad I not ? would 

For the sake o' somebody I 



WILT THOU BE MY DEARIE ? 

Air — Tlie Sitter's Dochter. 
Wilt thou be my dearie ? 
When sorrow wrings thy gentle heart. 
Wilt thou let me cheer thee ? 
By the treasure of my soul, 
That's the love I bear thee ! 
I swear and vow that only thou 
Shall ever be my dearie. 
Only thou, I swear and vow, 
Shall ever be my dearie. 

Lassie, say thou loes me ; loves! 

Or if thou wilt na be my ain, not, own 

Say na thou'lt refuse me: 

If it winna, canna be, will rot, cannol 

Thou, for thine may choose me, 

Let me, lassie, quickly die, 

Trusting that thou loes me. 

Lassie, let me quickly die, 

Trusting that thou loes me. 



LOVELY POLLY STEWART. 

Tune — YeYe welcome, Charlie Stewart 
O lovely Polly Stewart 

charming Polly Stewart ! 
There's not a flower that blooms in May 

That's half so fair as thou art. 
The flower it blaws, it fades and fa's, blows, falls 

And art can ne'er renew it ; 
But worth and truth eternal youth 

Will give to Polly Stewart. 

May he whose arms shall fauld'thy charms. fold 

Possess a leal and true heart ; 
To him be given to ken the heaven know 

He grasps in Polly Stewart. 



BURNS' songs. 


27S 


lovely Polly Stewart ! 

charming Polly Stewart ! 
There's ne'er a flower that blooms in May 

That's half so sweet as thou art. 


! 


COULD AUGHT OF SONG. 




Tmnb—At Setting Dap. 




Could aright of song declare my pains, 

Could artful numbers move thee, 
The Muse should tell, in laboured strains, 

Mary, how I love thee ! 
They who but feign a wounded heart 

May teach the lyre to languish ; 
But what avails the pride of art, 

When wastes the soul with anguish ? 




Then let the sudden bursting sigh 

The heart-felt pang discover ; 
And in the keen, yet tender eye, 

read th' imploring lover ! 
For well I know thy gentle mind 

Disdains art's gay disguising ; 
Beyond what fancy e'er refined, 

The voice of Nature prizing. 




WAE IS MY HEART. 


Thn t e — Wae is my Heart, 




Wae is my heart, and the tear's in my ee ; 
Lang, lang, joy's been a stranger to me : 
Forsaken and friendless, my burden I bear, 
And the sweet voice o' pity ne'er sounds in my eai 


woe, eye 


Love, thou hast pleasures, and deep hae I loved . 
Love, thou hast sorrows, and sair hae I proved ; 
But this bruised heart that now bleeds in my breast, 
I can feel its throbbings will soon be at rest. 


hav) 
soro 


Oh, if I were happy, where happy I hae been, 

Down by yon stream, and yon bonnie castle-green ; 

For there he is wand'ring, and musing on me, 

Wha wad soon dry the tear frae Phillis's ee. who would 


HERE'S TO THY HEALTH MY BONNIE LASS. 


Tmrs — Laggan Burn. 




Here's to thy health, my bonnie lass, 
Guid-night, and joy be wi' thee ; 

I'll come nae mair to thy bower-door, 
To tell thee that I loe thee. 


good 

no more 

love 



BURNS SONGS, 



dinna think, my pretty pink, don't 
But I can live without thee : 

1 vow and swear I dinna care 

How lang ye look about ye. long 

Thou'rt aye sae free informing me so 

Thou hast nae mind to marry ; 
I'll be as free informing thee 

Nae time hae I to tarry. have 

I ken thy friends try ilka means, know, every 

Frae wedlock to delay thee ; 
Depending on some higher chance — 

But fortune may betray thee. 

I ken they scorn my low estate, 

But that does never grieve me ; 
But I'm as free as any he, 

Sina* siller will relieve me. wealth 

I count my health my greatest wealth, 

Sae long as I'll enjoy it : so 

I'll fear nae scant, I'll bode nae want, scarcity, forbode 

As lang's I get employment. 

But far-off fowls hae feathers fair, 

And aye until ye try them : 
Though they seem fair, still have a care, 

They may prove waur than I am. worse 

But still at night, when the moon shines bright, 

My dear, I'll come and see thee ; 
For the man that loes his mistress weel, 

Nae travel makes him weary. 



ANNA, THY CHARMS. 
Tune — Bonnie Mary. 

Anna, thy charms my bosom fire, 

And waste my soul with care ; 
But, ah ! how bootless to admire, 

When fated to despair I 
Yet in thy presence, lovely fair, 

To hope may be forgiven ; 
For sure 'twere impious to despair, 

So much in sight of heaven. 



MY LADY'S DINK. 

My lady's dink, my lady's drest, trim 

The flower and fancy of the west, 
But the lassie that a man loes best, 
O that's the lass to make him blest. 

Out ower yon muir, out ower yon mosa, o'er 

VVhare gor-cocks through the heather pass, where moorcocks 

There wons auld Colin's bonnie lass — dwells 
A lily in a wilderness. 



BURNS' SONGS. 


J8l i 


Sae sweetly move her gentle limbs, 




Like music notes o' lovers' hymns : 




The diamond dew is her een sae blue, 


eyet , 


Where laughing love sae wanton swims. 




JOCKEY'S TAEN THE PARTING KISS. 


Tune — Jockey's taen the parting Kiss. 




Jockey's taen the parting kiss, 


taken 


O'er the mountains he is gane ; 


gone i 


And with him is a' my bliss, 




Nought but griefs with me remain. 




Spare my luve, ye winds that blaw, 


love, blow 


Plashy sleets and beating rain ! 




Spare my luve, thou feathery snaw, 


snow 


Drifting o'er the frozen plain. 




When the shades of evening creep 




O'er the day's fair, gladsome ee, 


eve 


Sound and safely may he sleep, 




Sweetly blithe his waukening be ! 


awaking 


He will think on her he loves, 




Fondly he'll repeat her name ; 




For where'er he distant roves, 


home 


Jockey's heart is still at hame. 




LAY THY LOOF IN MINE, LASS. 


Tms'E — Cor dw diners' March. 




lay thy loof in mine, lass, 


hand 


In mine, lass, in mine, lass ; 




And swear on thy white hand, lass, 




That thou wilt be my ain. 


own 


A slave to love's unbounded sway, 




He aft has wrought me meikle wae ; oft, much -woe 


But now he is my deadly fae, 


foe 


Unless thou be my ain. 




There's mony a lass has broke my rest, 




That for a blink I hae loed best ; moment^ 


I've loved i 


But thou art queen within my breast, 




For ever to remain. 




lay thy loof in mine, lass, 




In mine, lass, in mine, lass ; 




And swear on thy white hand, lass, 




That thou wilt be my ain. 




MALLY'S MEEK, MALLY'S SWEET. 


Mally's meek, Mally's sweet, 




Mally's modest and discreet, 




Mally's rare, Mally's fair, 




Mally's every way complete. 





882 burns' songs. 



As I was walking up the street, 

A barefit maid I chanced to meet ; 
But oh, the road was very hard 

For that fair maiden's tender feet. 

It were mair meet that those fine feet more 

Were weel laced up in silken shoon ; shoes 

And 'twere more fit that she should sit 

Within yon chariot gilt aboon. above 

Her yellow hair, beyond compare, 

Comes trinkling down her swan-like neck ; 

And her two eyes, like stars in skies, 

AVould keep a sinking ship frae wreck. from 



THE BANKS OF CREE, 

Tune — The Banks of Cree. 

Here is the glen, and here the bower 
All underneath the birchen shade ; 

The village-bell has tolled the hour, 
O what can stay my lovely maid ? 

'Tis not Maria's whispering call ; 

'Tis but the balmy-breathing gale, 
Mixed with some warbler's dying fall, 

The dewy star of eve to hail. 

It is Maria's voice I hear ! — 

So calls the woodlark in the grove, 

His little faithful mate to cheer ; 
At once 'tis music and 'tis love. 

And art thou come ? — and art thou true ? 

O welcome, dear, to love and me I 
And let us all our vows renew, 

Along the flowery banks of Cree. 



ON THE SEAS AND FAR AWAY. 
Tune — O'er the ffills, dec. 

How can my poor heart be glad, 
When absent from my sailor lad ? 
How can I the thought forego, 
He's on the seas to meet the foe ? 
Let me wander, let me rove, 
Still my heart is with my love : 
Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day, 
Are with him that's far away. 

CHORUS. 

On the seas and far away, 
On stormy seas and far away; 
Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day, 
Are aye with him that's far away. 



BURNS SONGS. 



233 



When in Summer's noon I faint, 
As weary flocks around me pant, 
Haply in the scorching sun 
My sailor's thundering at his gun : 
Bullets, spare my only joy ! 
Bullets, spare my darling boy ! 
Fate, do with me what you in ay, 
Spare but him that's far away ! 

At the starless midnight hour, 

When Winter rules with boundless power J 

As the storms the forest tear, 

And thunders rend the howling air, 

Listening to the doubling roar, 

Surging on the rocky shore, 

All I can — I weep and pray, 

For his weal that's far away. 

Peace, thy olive wand extend, 

And bid wild War his ravage end, 

Man with brother man to meet, 

And as a brother kindly greet ; 

Then may Heaven, with prosperous g ■:,::•?-. 

Fill my sailor's welcome sails, 

To my arms their charge convey, 

My dear lad that s far away. 



CA' THE YOWES TO THE KNOWES. 

CHORUS. 

Ca' the yowes to the knowes, call, ewes, knolls 

Ca' them where the heather grows, 
Ca' them where the burnie rows, streamlet, rolls 

My bonny dearie 1 

thrush 

among 
sheep-fold 



Hark ! the mavis' evening-sang 
Sounding Cluden's woods amang ; 
Then a-faulding let us gang, 
My bonny dearie. 

We'll gae down by Cluden side, 
Through the hazels spreading wide, 
O'er the waves that sweetly glide 
To the moon sae clearly. 

Yonder Cluden's silent towers, 
Where at moonshine midnight hours, 
O'er the dewy bending flowers, 
Fairies dance sae cheery. 

Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear; 
Thou'rt to love and heaven sae dear, 
Nocht of ill may come thee near, 
My bonnie dearie. 



go 



ghost, spectre 

sc 

nought 



284 



BURNS' SONGS. 



Fair and lovely as thou art, 
Thou hast stown my very heart ; 
I can die — but canna part, 
My bonny dearie. 

While waters wimple to the sea ; 
While day blinks in the lift sae hie ; 
Till clay-cauld death shall blin' my ee, 
Ye shall be my dearie. 



stolen 
cannot 

meander 

sky so high 

cold, eye 



ANOTHER VERSION. 

Ca' the yowes to the knowes, drive, knoll 

Ca' them where the heather grows, 
Ca' them where the burnie rows, rolls 

My bonny dearie. 

As I gaed down the water-side, went 
There I met my shepherd lad, 

He rowed me sweetly in his plaid, wrapped 

And he ca'd me his dearie. called 

Will ye gang down the water-side, go 

And see the waves sae sweetly glide ? so 

Beneath the hazel spreading wide, 
The moon it shines fu' clearly. 

Ye sail get gowns and ribbons meet, shall 

Cauf leather shoon upon your feet, calf, shoes 

And in my arms ye'se ever sleep, 
And ye sail be my dearie. 

If ye but stand to what ye've said, 
I'se gang wi' you, my shepherd lad, go 

And ye may row me in your plaid, 
And I sail be your dearie. 

While waters wimple to the sea, meander 

While day blinks in the lift sae hie, sky so high 

Till clay-cauld death shall blin' my ee, cold, eye 
Ye sail be my dearie. 



SHE SAYS SHE LOES ME BEST OF A 

Ttjxe — Onagh's Lock. 

Sae flaxen were her ringlets, so 

Her eyebrows of a darker hue, 
Bewitchingly o'er-arching 

Twa laughing een o' bonnie blue. two, eyes 

Her smiling, sae wiling, 

Wad make a wretch forget his wo : would 

What pleasure, what treasure, 

Unto these rosy lips to grow : 



BURNS' SONGS. 



285 



Such was my Chloris' bonnie face, 
When first her bonnie face I saw ; 

And aye my Chloris' dearest charm, 
She says she loes me best of a'. 

Like harmony her motion ; 

Her pretty ankle is a spy 
Betraying fair proportion, 

Wad make a saint forget the sky. 
Sae warming, sae charming, 

Her faultless form and graceful air ; 
Ilk feature — auld Nature 

Declared that she could do nae mair. 
Hers are the willing chains o' love, 

By conquering beauty's sovereign law ; 
And aye my Chloris' dearest charm, 

She says she loes me best of a'. 

Let others love the city, 

And gaudy show at sunny noon ; 
Gie me the lonely valley, 

The dewy eve, and rising moon 
Fair beaming, and streaming, 

Her silver light the boughs amang : 
While falling, recalling, 

The amorous thrush concludes his sang 
There, dearest Chloris, wilt thou rove 

By wimpling burn and leafy shaw, 
And hear my vows o' truth and love, 

And say thou loes me best of a'. 



lores 



would 



each 
no more 



loves 



give 



among 



song 



r,::iding,wood 



SAW YE MY PHELY ? 

Tune — WTien sJie cam ben she bobbit. 

Oh, saw ye my dear, my Phely ? 
Oh, saw ye my dear, my Phely ? 
She's down i' the grove, she's wi' a new love, 
She winna come hame to her Willy. wont, home 

What says she, my dearest, my Phely ? 
What says she, my dearest, my Phely ? 
She let's thee to wit, that she has thee forgot, informs 

And for ever disowns thee, her Willy. 

Oh, had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely ! 
Oh, had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely ! 
As light as the air, and fause as thou's fair, false 

Thou's broken the heart o' thy Willy. 



HOW LONG AND DREARY IS THE NIGHT ! 
Tune— Cauld Kail in Aberdeen, 

How long and dreary is the night 

When I am frae my dearie ! 
I restless lie frae e'en to morn, 

Though I were ne'er sae weary. 



from 



S86 


BURNS' SONGS. 







CHORUS. 




For oh, her lanely nights are lang ! 


lonely 




And oh, her dreams are eerie ! 


gloomy 




And oh, her widowed heart is sair, 


Bora 




That's absent frae her dearie ! 






When I think on the lightsome days 






I spent wi' thee, my dearie, 






And now what seas between us roar, 






How can I be but eerie ? 






How slow ye move, ye heavy hours ! 






The joyless day, how dreary I 






It was na sae ye glinted by, not so 


, glanced 


• 


When I was wi' my dearie I 




LET NOT WOMAN E'ER COMPLAIN. 




Tune — Duncan Gray. 






Let not woman e'er complain 






Of inconstancy in love ; 






Let not woman e'er complain 






Fickle man is apt to rove. 






Look abroad through Nature's range, 






Nature's mighty law is change ; 






Ladies, would it not be strange, 






Man should then a monster prove ? 






Mark the winds, and mark the skies ; 






Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow : 






Sun and moon but set to rise, 






Round and round the seasons go. 






Why, then, ask of silly man 






To oppose great Nature's plan ? 






We'll be constant while we can — 




THE 


You can be no more, you know. 


TRESS, 


LOVER'S MORNING SALUTE TO HIS MIS 




Tune— Deil tak the Wars. 






Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thou, fairest creature ? 






Rosy Morn now lifts his eye, 






Numbering ilka bud which Nature 


each 




Waters wi' the tears o' joy : 






Now through the leafy woods, 






And by the reeking floods, 


smoking 




Wild Nature's tenants freely, gladly stray ; 






The lintwhite in his bower 


linnet 




Chants o'er the breathing flower ; 






The lav'rock to the sky 


lark 




Ascends wi' sangs o' joy, 


songs 




While the sun and thou arise to bless the day. 





BURNS' SONGS. 287 

Phoebus gilding the brow o' morning, 

Banishes ilk darksome shade, 
Nature gladd'ning and adorning; 

Such to me my lovely maid. 

When absent frae my fair, frca 

The murky shades o' care 
With starless gloom o'ercast my sullen sky ; 

But when in beauty's light, 

She meets my ravished sight, 

When through my very heart 

Her beaming glories dart — 
'Tis then I wake to life, to light, and joy ! 



THE AULD MAN. 

But lately seen in gladsome green, 

The woods rejoiced the day ; 
Through gentle showers the laughing flowers 

In double pride were gay : 
But now our joys are fled 

On winter blasts awa ! awa> 

Yet maiden May, in rich array, 

Again shall bring them a'. 

But my white pow, nae kindly thowe head, no, thaw 

Shall melt the snaws of age ; sno-ws 

My trunk of eild, but buss or beild, age, without "bush 

Sinks in Time's wintry rage. [shelte*. 

Oh, age has weary days, 

And nights o' sleepless pain ! 
Thou golden time o' youthful prime, 

Why com'st thou not again I 



MY CHLORIS, MARK HOW GREEN THE GROVES.. 

Tuxe — My Lodging is on the cold Ground. 

My Chloris, mark how green the groves, 

The primrose banks how fair ; 
The balmy gales awake the flowers, 

And wave thy flaxen hair. 

The lav'rock shuns the palace gay, lark 

And o'er the cottage sings : 
For Nature smiles as sweet, I ween, 

To shepherds as to kings. 

Let minstrels sweep the skilfu* string 

In lordly lighted ha' : 
The shepherd stops his simple reed, 

Blithe, in the birken shaw. birch wood* 

The princely revel may survey 
Our rustic dance wi' gcorr. 



tS8 BURNS' songs. 



But arc their hearts as light as ours 
Beneath the milk-white thorn ? 

The shepherd, in the flowery glen, 

In shepherd's phrase will woo : 
The courtier tells a finer tale, 

But is his heart as true ? 

These wild-wood flowers I've pu'd, to deck 

That spotless breast o' thine : 
The courtier's gems may witness love — 

But 'tis na love like mine. no* 



IT WAS THE CHARMING MONTH OF MAY. 

Tuke — Dainty Davie. 

It was the charming month of May, 
When all the flowers were fresh and gay, 
One morning, by the break of day, 

The youthful, charming Chloe ; 
From peaceful slumber she arose, 
Girt on her mantle and her hose, 
And o'er the flowery mead she goes, 

The youthful, charming Chloe. 

CHORUS. 

Lovely was she by the dawn, 
Youthful Chloe y charming Chloo, 

Tripping o'er the pearly lawn, 
The youthful, charming Chloe. 

The feathered people, you might see 
Perched all around on every tree, 
In notes of sweetest melody 

They hail the charming Chloe ; 
Till, painting gay the eastern skies, 
The glorious sun began to rise, 
Out-rivalled by the radiant, eyes 

Of youthful, charming Chloe. 



LASSIE WT THE LINT- WHITE LOCKS. 

Tune — Rothemurchie's Rant. 
CHORUS. 

Lassie wi' the lint-white locks, 

Bonnie lassie, artless lassie, 
Wilt thou wi 5 me tent the flocks, tend 

Wilt thou be my dearie O ? 

Now Nature deeds the flowery lea, clothe* 

And a' is young and sweet like thee : 
Oh, wilt thou share its joys wi' me, 
And say thou'lt be my dearie O ? 



BURNS SONGS. 



And when the welcome simmer shower suramei 

Has cheered ilk drooping little flower, each 

We'll to the breathing woodbine bower 
At sultry noon, my dearie O. 

When Cynthia lights, wi' silver ray, 
The weary shearer's hameward way, honit\rard 

Through yellow waring fields we'll stray, 
And talk o' love, my dearie O. 

And when the howling wintry blast 
Disturbs my lassie's midnight rest, 
Enclasped to my faithful breast, 
I'll comfort thee, my dearie O. 



PHILLY AND WILLY. 

Tune— The Sow's Tail 
HE. 

O Philly, happy be that day, 
When roving through the gathered hay, 
My youthful heart was stown away, siolca 

And by thy charms, my Philly. 



O Willy, aye I bless the grove 
Where first I owned my maiden love, 
\Yhilst thou didst pledge the powers above 
To be my ain dear Willy. 



As songsters of the early year 
Are ilka day mair sweet to hear, 
So ilka day to me mair dear 
And charming is my Philly. 



As on the brier the budding rose 
Still richer breathes and fairer blows, 
So in my tender bosom grows 
The love I bear my Willie. 

HE. 

The milder sun and bluer sky, 
That crown my harvest cares wi' joy, 
Were ne'er sae welcome to my eye so 

As is a sight o' Philly. 

SHE. 

The little swallow's wanton wing, 
Though wafting o'er the flowery spring, 
Did ne'er to me sic tidings bring, §ncb 

As meeting o' my Willy. 



290 BURNS SONGS. 



HE 

The bee that through the sunny hour 
Sips nectar in the opening flower, 
Compared wi' my delight is poor, 
Upon the lips o' Philly. 

SHE. 

The woodbine in the dewy weet, WG | 

When evening shades in silence meet, 
Is nocht sae fragrant or sae sweet nought sc 

As is a kiss o* Willy. 

HE. 

Let fortune's wheel at random rin, rur) 

And fools may tyne, and knaves may win ; i 0S e 

My thoughts are a' bound up in ane, one 
And that's my ain dear Philly. 

SHE. 

What's a* the joys that gowd can gie ? gold, give 

I care na wealth a single flie; not 

The lad I love's the lad for me, 
And that's my ain dear Willy. 



CONTENTED WI' LITTLE. 
Tune — Lumps o' Pudding. 
Contented wi' little, and can tie wi' mair, merry, more 

Whene'er I forgather wi' sorrow and care, m eet 

I gie them a skelp as they're creepin' alang, give, stroke, along 
Wi' a cog o' guid swats, and an auld Scottish sang. bowl, ale 
I whiles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought; sometimes scratch 
But man is a sodger, and life is a faught : soldier, fight 

My mirth and good-humour are coin in my pouch, pocket 

And my freedom's my lairdship nae monarch dare touch. no 
A towmond o* trouble, should that be my fa', year, fate 

A night o' guid -fellowship sowthers it a' : good, soldier* 

When at the blithe end of our journey at last, 
What man ever thinks o' the road he has past ? 

[tottei 
Blind Chance, let her snapper and stoyte on her way; stumble. 
Be't to me, be't frae me, e'en let the jade gae: from, gc 

Come ease, or come travail; come pleasure, 01 pain, 
My warst word is: "Welcome, and welcome agun ! " woraf 



CANST THOU LEAVE ME THUS MY RATI ? 
Tune— Roy's Wife. 

CHORUS. 
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy ? 
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy ? 
Well thou know'st my aching heart, 
And canst thou leave me thus for pity ? 



BURNS SONGS. 



291 



Is this thy plighted, fond regard, 

Thus cruelly to part, niy Katy ? 
Is this thy faithful swain's reward — 

An aching, broken heart, my Katy ? 
Farewell ! and ne'er such sorrows tear 

That fickle heart of thine, my Katy I 
Thou may'st find those will love thee dear- 

But not a love like mine, my Katy. 



FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT. 

Is there, for honest poverty, 

That hangs his head, and a' that! 
The coward slave we pass him by, 

We dare be poor for a' that ! 
For a* that, and a' that, 

Our toils obscure, and a' that ; 
The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 

The man's the gowd for a' that I 

What though on hamely fare we dine, 

Wear hoddin gray, and a' that ; 
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, 

A man's a man for a 5 that ! 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Their tinsel show, and a' that ; 
The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 

Is king o* men for a* that ! 

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, 

Wha struts, and stares, and a' that; 
Though hundreds worship at his word, 

He's but a coof for a' that : 
For a' that, and a' that, 

His ribbon, star, and a' that ; 
The man of independent mind, 

He looks and laughs at a' that. 

A prince can mak a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, and a J that ; 
But an honest man's aboon his might, 

Guid faith, he m annua fa' that! 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Their dignities, and a' that ; 
The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, 

Are higher rank than a' that. 

Then let us pray that come it may — 

As come it will for a' that — 
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, 

May bear the gree, and a' that. 
For a' that, and a 5 that, 

It's coming yet, for a' that, 
That man to man, the warld o'e \ 

Shall brothers be for a' that ! 



gold 

homely 

coarse cloth 

give 



young fellow 
who 

fool 



above 
attempt 



supremacy 
world 



792 BURNS' SONGS. 



O LASSIE, ART THOU SLEEPING YET! 
Tune — Let me in this m Night 

O LASSIE, art thou sleeping yet ? 
Or art thou wakin', I would wit ? 
For love has bound ine hand and foot, 
And I would fain be in, jo. 

CHORUS. 

let me in this ae night, ore 
This ae, ae, ae night ; 

For pity's sake this ae night, 

rise and let me in, jo ! 

Thou hear'st the winter wind and weet, wet 

Nae star blinks through the driving sleet ; no 
Tak pity on my weary feet, 

And shield me frae the rain, jo. from 

The bitter blast that round me blaws blows 

Unheeded howls, unheeded fa's ; falls 

The cauldness o' thy heart's the cause coldness 
Of a' my grief and pain, jo. 

Her Answer* 

O tell na me o' wind and rain, not 

Upbraid na me wi' cauld disdain ; 
Gae back the gait ye cam again— go, way, came 

I winna let ye in, jo ! 

CHORUS. 

1 tell you now this ae night, 
This ae, ae, ae night ; 

And ance for a' this ae night, once 

1 winna let you in, jo ! 

The snellest blast, at mirkest hours, darkest 

That round the pathless wanderer pours, 
Is nocht to what poor she endures, nought 

That's trusted faithless man, jo. 

The sweetest flower that decked the mead, 
Now trodden like the vilest weed ; 
Let simple maid the lesson read, 
The weird may be her ain, jo. fate, own 

The bird that charmed his summer-day, 
Is now the cruel fowler's prey; 
Let witless, trusting woman say 
How aft her fate's the same, jo ! offc 



BURNS' songs. 



298 



BALLADS ON MR HERON'S ELECTION, 1795 * 

BALLAD FIRST. 

Whom will you send to London town, 

To Parliament and a* that ? 
Or wha in a' the country round 
The best deserves to fa' that ? 
For a' that, and a' that, 
Through Galloway, and a' that ; 
Where is the laird or belted knight 
That best deserves to fa' that ? 

Wha sees Kerrough tree's f open yett, 

And wha is't never saw that ? 
Wha ever wi' Kerroughtree meets, 
And has a doubt of a' that ? 
For a' that, and a' that, 
Here's Heron yet for a' that ! 
The independent patriot, 
The honest man, and a' that. 

Though wit and worth in either sex, 

St Mary's Isle can shaw that 
Wi' dukes and lords let Selkirk t mix, 
And weel does Selkirk fa' that. 
For a' that, and a' that, 
Here's Heron yet for a' that ! 
The independent commoner 
Shall be the man for a' that. 

But why should we to nobles jouk ? 

And is't against the law that ? 
For why, a lord may be a gouk, 
Wi' ribbon, star, and a' that. 
For a' that, and a' that, 
Here's Heron yet for a' that ! 
A lord may be a stupid loun, 
Wi' ribbon, star, and a' that. 



whr 

try 



.gate 



show 
well 



bend 
fool 



fellow 



A beardless boy § comes o'er the hills, 

Wi' uncle's || purse and a' that, 
But we'll hae ane frae 'mang oursels, one from 

1 man we ken, and a' that. know 

For a' that, and a' that, 
Here's Heron yet for a' that ! 
For we're not to be bought and sold, 
Like naigs, and nowt, and a' that, horses, cattle 

Then let us drink the Stewartry, (of Kirkcudbright 

Kerroughtree's laird, and a' that, 
Our representative to be, 

For weel he's worthy a' that. 



* For the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright 
f Mr Heron, tine Whig candidate. 
j The Earl of Selkirk. 



§ Mr Gordon of Balmaghie, Tory 
candidate. 
Mr Murray of Broughton. 



1 

£94 BURNS SONGS. 


For a' that, and a' that, 
Here's Heron yet for a 5 that ! 
A House of Commons such as he, 
They would be blest that saw that. 






BALLAD SECOND. 






Fy, let us a' to Kirkcudbright, 
For there will be bickering there ; 

For Murray's light horse are to muster, 
And oh, how the heroes will swear ! 






First, there will be trusty Kerroughtree, 
Whase honour was ever his law ; 

If the virtues were packed in a parcel, 
His worth might be sample for a'. 




whuee 


And strong and respectfu's his backing, 
The maist o' the lairds wi' him stand ; 

Nae gipsy-like nominal barons, 
Whase property 's paper,* but lands. 


whose. 


most 
without 


For there frae the Niddisdale borders, 
The Maxwells will gather in droves, 

Teugh Jockie,t stanch Geordie,t and Wellwood,§ 
That griens for the fishes and loaves. 


fror 

tough 
long? 


And there will be Heron the Major,|| 
Wha'll ne'er be forgot in the Greys ; 

Our flattery we'll keep for some other, 
Him only 'tis justice to praise. 




who'l] 


And there will be Maiden Kilkerrau,1F 
And also Barskimming's gude knight ;** 

And there will be roaring Birtwhistle,tt 
Wha luckily roars i' the right. 






Next there will be wealthy young Richard- 
Dame Fortune should hing by the neck 

For prodigal thriftless bestowing — 
His merit had won him respect. 


•« 


ham 


And there will be rich brother nabobs,§§ 
Though nabobs, yet men of the first ; 

And there will be Coilieston's whiskers,!! H 
And Quintin, o' lads not the warst.^T 


o 




And there wih be stamp-office Johnnie*** — 
Take care how ye purchase a dram ; 






* Paper voters. ft Mr Birtwhistle of Kirkcudbright 
f Mr Maxwell of Terraughty. '$$ Mr R. Oswald of Auchincruive 
i Mr G. Maxwell of Carruchan. 58 Messrs Hannay. 
§ Mr Wellwood Maxwell. f|f| Mr Copland of"Collieston. 
|J Major Heron, brother of Kerroughtree. SI Mr Q. M'Adam of Craigengi Ian. 
S Sir A. Ferguson of Kilkerran. *** Mr Syme, Stamp-office, Dumfries. 
• * Sir W MUier, afterwards lord Glenlee. 



BURNS SONGS. 


295 


And there will be gay Cassencarrie,* 
And there will be gleg Colonel Tain.t 


sharp 


And there will be folk frae St Mary's, 
A house of great merit and note ; 

For nae ane but honours them highly, 
But there's few will gie them a vote. 


(Selkirk) 
no one 


And there'll be Murray commander, 
And Gordon the battle to win ; 

Like brothers they'll stand by each other, 
Sae knit in alliance and sin. 


so 


And there'll be Kempleton's birkie,j 
A chiel no sae black at the bane ; 

For as for his fine nabob fortune, 
We'll e'en let that subject alane. 


bone 
»lone 


And there'll be Wigton's new sheriff. § 
Dame Justice fu 5 brawly has sped; 

She's gotten the heart o' a Bushby, 
But, what is become o' the head ? 




And there is our king's lord-lieutenant, 
So famed for his grateful return ; 

The birkie is getting his questions, 
To say in St Stephen's the morn. 




And there will be Douglases doughty, 
New-christening towns far and near ; 

Abjuring their democrat doings, 
By kissing the tae of a peer, 


toe 


And there'll be lads o* the gospel ; 

Muirhead, wha's as guid as he's true ;1F 
And there'll be Buittle's apostle,** 

Wha's mair o' the black than the blue. 


who's 
more 


And therell be Kenmure sae generous,!! 

Whase honour is proof to the storm ; 
To save them frae stark reprobation, 

He lent them his name to the firm. 


whose 

from 


And there'll be Logan M'Dowall,}J 
Sculduddery and he will be there ; 

And also the wild Scot o* Galloway, 
Sodgering gunpowder Blair.§§ 


soldiering ' 


But we winna mention Redcastle,||{| 
The body, e'en let him escape ! 

He'd venture the gallows for siller, 
An' 'twere na' the cost o' the rape. 


will not 

money 
rope 


* Mr Syme of Cassencarrie. ** Rev. G. Maxwell of Buittle. 
t Colonel Goldie of Goldielea. ft "Mr Gordon of Kenmure. 
± William Bushbv of Kempleton. m Captain M~Dowall of Logan. 
5 Mr Bushby Mainland. §§ Mr Blair of Dunskey. 
|i Messrs Douglas of Carlimvark. jjjl Mr Layrrie of Redcastle. 
Rev. Mr Muirhead of Urr. 

I 



m 



burns' songs. 



Then hey the chaste interest o' Broughton, 
And hey for the blessings 'twill bring ! 

It may send Balmaghie to the Commons, 
In Paris 'twould make him a kiDg. 



BALLAD THIRD. 

AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG. 

Tune — Buy Broom Besoms. 

AVha will buy my troggin, who, clothe* 

Fine election ware ; 
Broken trade o' Broughton, 
A' in high repair. 

Buy braw troggin, 

Frae the banks o' Dee ; 
"Wha wants troggin who 

Let him come to me. 

There's a noble earl's (Galloway) 

Fame and high renown, 
For an auld sang — 

It's thought the gudes were stown, goods, stolen 

Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Here's the worth o' Broughton, 

In a needle's ee ; eye 

Here's a reputation 

Tint by Balmaghie. lost 

Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Here's its stuff and lining, 

Cardoness's head ; (Mr Gordon) 

Fine for a sodger, soldier 

A' the wale o' lead. choice 

Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Here's a little wadset, mortgage 

Buittle's scrap o' truth, 
Pawned in a gin-shop, 

Quenching holy drouth. thirst 

Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Here's an honest conscience 

Might a prince adorn ; 
Frae the downs o' Tinwald — from 

So was never worn. 

Buy braw troggin, &c. 

Here's armorial bearings, 

Frae the manse o' Urr ; 
The crest, a sour crab-apple, 

Rotten at the core. 

Buy braw troggin, &0, 



burns' songs. 


29* 


There is Satan's picture, 




Liko a buzzard gled, 


kite 


Pouncing poor Redcastle, 




Sprawlin' as a taed. 


toad 


Buy braw troggin, &c. 




Hero's the font where Douglas 




Stane and mortar names ; 


etons 








Christening Murray's crimes. 




Buy braw troggin, &c. 




Here's the worth and wisdom 




Collieston can boast ; 




By a thievish midge 


gnai 


They had been nearly lost. 




Buy braw troggin, &c. 




Here is Murray's fragments 




0' the Ten Commands ; 




Gifted by Black Jock, 




To get them aff his hands. 


off 


Buy braw troggin, &c. 




Saw ye e'er sic troggin ? 




If to buy ye're slack, 




Hornie's turning chapman— 




He'll buy a' the pack. 


• 


Buy braw troggin, 




Frae the banks o' Dee ; 




"Wha wants troggin 




Let him come to me. 




BALLAD FOURTH. 


JOHN BUSHBY'S LAMENTATION. 




Tvs&—The Babes in the Wood, 




'Twas in the seventeen hunder year 




0' grace and ninety-five, 




That year I was the wae'est man 


saddest 


0' onyman alive. 


any 


In March the three-and-twentieth morn, 




The sun raise clear and bright ; 




But oh I was a waefu' man 




Ere to-fa' o* the night. 


the close 


Yerl Galloway lang did rule this land, 
Wi' equal right and fame, 


Earl, long 


And thereto was his kinsman joined 




The Murray's noble name. 




Yerl Galloway lang did rule the land, 




Made me the judge o' strife ; 




But now Yerl Galloway's sceptre's broke,. 




And eke my hangman's knife. 


also 






*98 EUROS' SO^GS. 


-'Twas by the banks o* bonnie Dee, 
Beside Kirkcudbright's towers, 

The Stewart and the Murray there 
Did muster a' their powers. 




The Murray, on the auld gray yaud, 

Wi' winged spurs did ride, 
That auld gray yaud, yea, Nidsdale rade, 

He staw upon Mdside. 


mare 

rode 

stole 


An' there had na been the yerl himsel', 
there had been nae play ; 

But Garlies was to London gane, 
And sae the kye might stray. 


not 
no 

bo, kine 


And there was Balmaghie, I ween, 
In front rank he wad shine ; 

But Balmaghie had better been 
Drinking Madeira wine. 


would 


Frae the Glenkens came to our aid, 

A chief o' doughty deed ; 
In case that worth should wanted be, 

0' Kenmure we had need. 


mighty 


And by our banners marched Muirhead, 
And Buittle was na slack ; 
# Whase haly priesthood nane can stain, 
For wha can dye the black ? 


holy, none 
who 


And there sae grave Squire Cardoness, 
Looked on till a* was done ; 

Sae, in the tower o' Gardoness, 
A howlet sits at noon. 


owl 


And there led I the Bushby clan, 
My gamesome billie Will ; 

And my son Maitland, wise as brave, 
My footsteps followed still. 


brother 


The Douglas and the Heron's name 
We set nought to their score ; 

The Douglas and the Heron's name 
Had felt our might before. 




But Douglasses o' weight had we, 

The pair o' lusty lairds, 
For building cot-houses sae famed, 

And christening kail-yards. 


cabbage 


And there Redcastle drew his sword, 
That ne'er was stained wi' gore, 

Save on a wanderer lame and blind, 
To drive him frae his door. 


fron 


At last came creeping C 1* n, 

Was mair in fear than wrath ; 

Ae knave was constant in his mind, 
To keep that knave frae scaith. 


more 
one 

harm ; 







BURNS' SONGS. 



299 



THE DUMFRIES VOLUNTEERS. 
Tune — Push about the Jorum. 

Does haughty Gaul invasion threat ? 

Then let the loons beware, sir ; fellows 

There's wooden walls upon our seas, 

And volunteers on shore, sir. 
The Nith shall run to Corsincon, 

And Criffel sink in Solway, 
Ere we permit a foreign foe 

On British ground to rally ! 
Fall de rail, &c. 

Oh, let us not like snarling tykes dogs 

In wrangling be divided ; 
Till, slap, come in an unco loon,. strange 

And wi' a rung decide it. bludgeon 

Be Britain still to Britain true, 

Among oursels united ; 
For never but by British hands 

Maun British wrangs be righted. must, wrongs 

Fall de rail, &c. 

The kettle o' the Kirk and State, 

Perhaps a clout may fail in't ; mend 

But not a foreign tinkler loon tinker 

Shall ever ca' a nail in't. drive 

Our fathers' bluid the kettle bought, blood 

And wha wad dare to spoil it ; who would 

In troth the sacrilegious dog 

Shall fuel be to boil it. 
Fall de rail, &c. 

The wretch that wad a tyrant owd, would 

And the wretch his true-born brother, 
Who'd set the mob aboon the throne, above 

Let them be hanged together ! 
"Who will not sing " God save the King,"' 

Shall hang as high's the steeple ; 
But while we sing " God save the Kin-g," 

We'll ne'er forget the People. 



OH, WAT YE WHA'S IN YON TOWN ? 
Tune— We'll gang not mair to yon Towru 

Oh, wat ye wha's in yon town, 

Ye see the e'enin' sun upon ? 
The fairest dame's in yon town, 

The e'enin' sun is shining on. 

Now haply down yon gay green shaw, 
She wanders by yon spreading tree ; 

How blest ye flowers that round her blaw, 
Ye catch the glances o' her ee I 



know, whc 



wood 



bio* 



BOO burns' songs. 



How blest ye birds that round her sing, 

And welcome in the blooming year ! 
And doubly welcome be the spring, 

The season to my Lucy dear. 

The sun blinks blithe on yon town, 

And on yon bonnie braes of Ayr ; 
But my delight in yon town, 

And dearest bliss, is Lucy fair. 

Without rny love, not a* the charms 

O' Paradise could yield me joy ; 
But gie me Lucy in my arms, giro 

And welcome Lapland's dreary sky ! 

My cave wad be a lover's bower, 

Though raging Winter rent the air ; 
And she a lovely little flower, 

That I would tent and shelter there. would tend 

Oh, sweet is she in yon town, 

Yon sinkin' sun's gane down upon ; gone 

A fairer than's in yon town 

His setting beam ne'er shone upon. 

If angry Fate is sworn my foe, 

And suffering I am doomed' to bear ; 
I careless quit aught else below, 

But spare me — spare me, Lucy dear ! 

For while life's dearest "blood is warm, 

Ae thought frae her shall ne'er depart, one, from 

And she — as fairest is her form ! 

She has the truest, kindest heart ! 



ADDRESS TO THE WOODLARK 

TuifE— Loch Erroch Side. 

stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay ! 
Nor quit for me the trembling spray ; 
A hapless lover courts thy lay, 
Thy soothing, fond complaining. 

Again, again that tender part, . 
That I may catch thy melting art ; 

For surely that wad touch her heart vould 

Wha kills me wi' disdaining. who 

Say, was thy little mate unkind, 
And heard thee as the careless wind? 

Oh ! nocht but love and sorrow joined, nought 

Sic notes o' wo could wauken» mien, woe, awake 

Thou tells o' never-ending care ; 
O' speechless grief, and dark despair : 
For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair, no more 

Or my poor heart is broken I 



burns' songs. 



B01 



ON CHLORIS BEING ILL. 
Tune — Aye Wakin 0. ' 



Long, long the night, 

Heavy comes the morrow, 

While my soul's delight 
Is on her bed of sorrow. 

Can I cease to care ? 

Can I cease to languish ? 
While my darling fair 

Is on the couch of anguish ? 

Every hope is fled, 
Every fear is terror ; 

Slumber even I dread ; 
Every dream is horror. 

Hear me, Powers divine ! 

Oh, in pity hear me ! 
Take aught else of mine, 

But my Chloris spare me ! 



THEIR GROVES O' SWEET MYRTLE. 

Tune — Humours of Glen. 

Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, 
Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume ; 

Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan, 
Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom. 

Far dearer to me are yon humble broom'bowers, 
Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen : 

For there, lightly tripping amang the wild-flowers, 
A-listening the linnet, aft wanders my Jean. 



fern 
long 

daisy 
oft 



Though rich is the breeze in their gay sunny valleys, 

And cauld Caledonia's blast on the wave ; cold 

Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace, 
What are they ? — the haunt of the tyrant and slave I 

The slaved spicy forests, and gold-bubbling fountains, 

The brave Caledonian views wi' disdain ;' 
He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains, 

Save love's willing fetters — the chains o' his Jean ! 






'TWAS NA HER BONNIE BLUE EE WAS MY RUIN. 
Tune— Laddie be near me. 



'Twas na her bonnie blue ee was my ruin ; 
Fair though she be, that was ne'er my undoing : 
'Twas the dear smile when naebody did mind us, 
'Twas the bewitching, sweet, stown glance &' kindness. 



not, eye 



stolen 



502 BURNS' S0NG8. 



Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me, »ore 

Sair do I fear that despair maun abide me; mn*i 

But though fell fortune should fate us to sever, 
Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever ! 

Mary, I'm thine wi' a passion sincerest, 
And thou has plighted me love o' the dearest I 
And thou'rt the angel that never can alter, 
Sooner the sun in his motion would falter. 



HOW CRUEL ARE THE PARENTS I 

ALTERED FROM AN OLD ENGLISH SONG. 
Tune — John Anderson my Jo. 

How cruel are the parents, 

Who riches only prize ; 
And to the wealthy booby, 

Poor woman sacrifice ! 
Meanwhile, the hapless daughter 

Has but a choice of strife ; — 
To shun a tyrant father's hate, 

Become a wretched wife. 

The ravening hawk pursuing, 

The trembling dove thus flies, 
To shun impelling ruin 

Awhile her pinions tries : 
Till of escape despairing, 

No shelter or retreat, 
She trusts the ruthless falconer, 

And drops beneath his feet. 



MARK YONDER POMP OF COSTLY FASHION. 

Mark- yonder pomp of costly fashion, 

Round the wealthy, titled bride : 
But when compared with real passion, 

Poor is all that princely pride. 

What are the showy treasures ? 

What are the noisy pleasures ? 
The gay gaudy glare of vanity and art : 

The polished jewel's blaze 

May draw the wondering gaze, 

And courtly grandeur bright 

The fancy may delight, 
But never, never can come near the heart. 

But did you see my dearest Chloris, 

In simplicity's array ; 
Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower U, 

Shrinking from the gaze of day. 



BURNS' SONGS. 



80f 



Oh then, the heart alarming, 

And all resistless charming, 
In Love's delightful fetters she chains the willing soul J 

Ambition would disown 

The worlds imperial crown, 

Even Avarico would deny 

His worshipped deity, 
And feel through every vein Love's rapture's roll. 



FORLORN, MY LOVE, NO COMFORT NEAR, 

Tune — Let me in this ae Night. 

Forlorn, my love, no comfort near, 
Far, far from thee, I wander here ; 
Far, far from thee, the fate severe 
At which I most repine, love. 

CHORUS. 
Oh, wert thou, love, but near me ; 
But near, near, near me : 
How kindly thou wouldst cheer me, 
And mingle sighs with mine, love. 

Around me scowls a wintry sky, 
That blasts each bud of hope and joy ; 
And shelter, shade, nor home have I, 
Save in those arms of thine, love. 

Cold, altered friendship's cruel part, 

To poison Fortune's ruthless dart — 

Let me not break thy faithful heart, 

And say that fate is mine, love. 

But dreary though the moments fleet, 
Oh, let me think we yet shall meet 1 
That only ray of solace sweet 
Can on thy Chloris shine, love. 



LAST MAY A BRAW AVOOER, 

SCOTTKH BALLAD. 
Tune — The Lothian Lassie. 

Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen, 
And sair wi' his love he did deave me ; 

I said there was naething I hated like men — 
O what made the gomral believe me, believe me ; 
O what made the gombal believe me. 

He spak o' the darts o' my bonny black een, 
And vowed for my love he was dying ; 

I said he might die when he liked for Jean — 
He'd need to foegie see for lying, for lying ; 
He'd need to foegie me for lying ! 



came, long 

sore, deaf eu 

nothing 

fool 

spake, eyes 



forgiv* 



304 BURNS' songs. 



A well-stocked mailen — himsel for the laird — farm 

And marriage aff-hand, were his proffers : 
I never loot on that I kenned it, or cared, noticed, knew 

But thought I might hae waur offers, waur offers ; worse 

But thought I might hae waur offers. 

But what wad ye think ?— in a fortnight or less, would 

Nae praise to his taste to gae near her I no, go 

He up the Gateslack to my black cousin Bess, 

Guess ye how, the j ad ! Icouldbearher, couldbearher; 
Guess ye how, the jad ! I could bear her. 

But a' the neist week as I fretted wi* care, next 

I gaed to the tryste o' Dalgarnock, went, fair 

And wha but my fine fickle lover was there ! who 

I glowred as I'd seen a warlock, a warlock ! stared 
I glowred as I'd seen a warlock. 

But owre my left shouther I gae him a blink, o'er, shoulder, gavo 
Lest neibors might say I was saucy, neighbours 

My wooer he capered as he'd been in drink, 
And vowed I was his dear lassie, dear lassie ; 
And vowed I was his dear lassie. 

I speered for my cousin fu' couthy and sweet, loving 

Gin she had recovered her hearin', if 

And how my auld shoon fitted her shachl't feet, shoes, distorted 
But hech i how he fell a swearin', a swearin' ; 
But hech * how he fell a swearin'. 

He begged for onysake I'd be his wife, 

Or else I wad kill him wi' sorrow : 
So e'en to preserve the poor body in life, 

I think I maun wed him to-morrow, to-morrow ; must 

I think I maun wed him to-morrow. 



FRAGMENT. 
Tune; — TJie Caledonian Hunt's Delight. 

Why, why tell thy lover, 

Bliss he never must enjoy ? 
Why, why undeceive him, 

And give all his hopes the lie ? 

O why, while Fancy, raptured, slumbers, 
Chloris, Chloris all the theme, 

Why, why wouldst thou cruel. 
Wake thy lover from his dream ? . 



O THIS IS NO MY AIN LASSIE. 
Tune — This is no my ain House, 

CHORUS. 
O this is no my ain lassie, own 

Fair though the lassie be ; 
. O weel ken I my ain lassie, well know 

Kind love is in her ee. eye 



BURNS' SONGS. 808 



I see a form, I see a face, 
Ye weel may wi' tho fairest place : 
It wants, to me, the witching grace, 
The kind love that's in her ee. 



She's bonnie, blooming, straight, and tall, 
And lang has had my heart in thrall ; long 

And aye it charms my very saul, sou] 

The kind love that's in her ee ? 

A thief sae pawkie is my Jean, so sh 

To steal a blink, by a' unseen ; 

But gleg as light are lovers' een, quick, eyei 

When kind love is in the ee. 

It may escape the courtly sparks, 
It may escape the learned clerks ; 
But weel the watching lover marks 
The kind love that's in her ee. 



NOW SPRING HAS CLAD. 

Now Spring has clad the grove in grec-a, 

And strewed the lea wi' flowers : 
The furrowed waving corn is seen 

Rejoice in fostering showers; 
While ilka thing in nature join every 

Their sorrows to forego, 
O why thus all alone are mine 

The weary steps of wo ! 

The trout within yon wimpling burn binding 

Glides swift — a silver dart ; 
And safe beneath the shady thorn 

Defies the angler's art. 
My life was ance that careless stream, once 

That wanton trout was I ; 
But love, wi' unrelenting beam, 

Ha3 scorched my fountains dry. 

The little floweret's peaceful lot, 

In yonder cliff that grows, 
Which, save the linnet's flight, I wot, 

Nae ruder visit knows, no 

Was mine ; till love has o'er me past, 

And blighted a' my bloom, 
And now beneath the withering blast 

My youth and joy consume. 

The wakened laverock warbling springs, lari 

And climbs the early sky, 
Winnowing blithe her dewy wings 

In morning's rosy eye. 



366 BURNS' SONGS. 

As little recked I sorrow's power, 

Until the flowery snare 
O' witching love, in luckless hour, 

Made me the thrall o' care. 

O had my fate been Greenland snows, 

Or Afric's burning zone, 
WV man and nature leagued my foes, 

So Peggy ne'er I'd known ! 
The wretch whase doom is, "hopenaemair," vbose,non)ora 

What tongue his woes can tell 1 
Within whase bosom, save despair, 

Nae kinder spirits dwell. 



BONNIE WAS YON ROSY BRIEU. ' 

O BONNIE was yon rosy brier, 

That blooms sae far frae haunt o' man ; so, from 

And bonnie she, and ah ! how dear ! 

It shaded frae the e'enin' sun. 

Yon rosebuds in the morning dew, 

How pure amang the leaves sae green ; 
But purer was the lover's vow 

They witnessed in their shade yestreen. last night 

All in its rude and prickly bower, 

That crimson rose, how sweet and fair } 
But love is far a sweeter flower 

Amid life's thorny path o' care. 

The pathless wild and wimpling burn, winding 

Wi' Chloris in my arms, be mine ; 
And I the world, nor wish, nor scorn, 

Its joys and griefs alike resign. 



HEY FOR A LASS WI' A TOCHER. 

Tune — Balinamona ora. 

Awa wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms, awa? 
The slender bit beauty you grasp in your arms : 

O gie me the lass that has acres o' charms, give 

O gie me the lass wi' the weel-stockit farms. well-stocked 

CHORUS. 

Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher, then hey for a lasa 

wi' a tocher ; dower 

Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher — the nice yellow 
guineas for me. 

Your beauty's a flower, in the morning that blows, 

And withers the faster, the faster it grows : 

But the rapturous charm o' the bonnie green knowes, knoHi 

Ilk spring they're new deckitwi' bonnie white yowes. each,ewe« 



EUROS' SONGS. 



£07 



And e'en when this beauty your bosom has blest, 
The brightest o' beauty may cloy, when possest ; 
But the sweet yellow darlings wi' Geordie imprest, 
The langer ya hae them, the inair they're carest. 



longer, have, 
[more 



JESSY. 



CHORUS. 

Here's a health to ane I loe dear I one, lova 

Here's a health to ane I loe dear ! 

Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, 

And soft as their parting tear — Jessy ! 

Although thou maun never be mine, must 

Although even hope is denied : 
'Tis sweeter for thee despairing, 

Than aught in the world beside — Jessy ! 

I mourn through the gay, gaudy day, 

As, hopeless, I muse on thy charms ; 
But welcome the dream o' sweet slumber, 

For then I am lock't in thy arms — Jessy ! 

I guess by the dear angel smile, 

I guess by the love-rolling ee ; sy« 

But why urge the tender confession, 

'Gainst Fortune's fell cruel decree— Jessy 1 



OH, AVERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST. 




Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast 


cold 


On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 




My plaidie to the angry airt, 


quarter 


I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee : 




Or did Misfortune's bitter storms 




Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, 


blow 


Thy bield should be my bosom, 


shelter 


To share it a', to share it a'. 




Or were I in the wildest waste, 




Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, 


80 


The desert were a paradise, 




If thou wert there, if thou wert there : 




Or were I monarch o' the globe, 




Wi' thee to reign, wi ; thee to reign, 




The brightest jewel in my crown 




Wad be my queen, wad be my queen. 


would 



BOX BURNS SONGS. 



FAIREST MAID ON DEVON BANKS. 

Tune — Rothemurchie* 
CHORUS. 

Fairest maid on Devon Banks, 
Crystal Devon, winding Devon, 

Wilt thou lay that frown aside, 
And smile as thou were wont to do? 



Full well thou know'st I love thee dear, 
Couldst thou to malice lend an ear ? 
Oh, did not love exclaim : " Forbear, 
Nor use a faithful lover so J" 

Then come, thou fairest of the fair, 
Those wonted smiles, oh, let me share 1 
And by thy beautous self I swear, 
No love but thine my heart shall know. 



CALEDONIA. 

Tune — Caledonian Hunt's Delight. 
Therb was once a day — but old Time then was young— 

That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line, 
From some of your northern deities sprung 

(Who knows not that brave Caledonia's divine T) 
From Tweed to the Orcade-s was her domain, 

To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would : 
Her heavenly relations there fixed her reign, 

And pledged her their godheads to warrant it good. 

A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war, 

The pride of her kindred the heroine grew : 
Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore, 

" Whoe'er shall provoke thee, th' encounter shall rue P 
With tillage or pasture at times she would sport, 

To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn ; 
But chiefly the woods were her fav'rite resort, 

Her darling amusement the hounds and the horn. 

Long quiet she reigned ; till thitherward steers' 

A flight of bold eagles from Adria's strand : 
Repeated, successive, for many long years, 

They darkened the air, and they plundered the land ; 
Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry, 

They'd conquered and ruined a world beside ; 
She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly — 

The daring invaders they fled or they died. 

The fell harpy-raven took wing from the North, 

The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore ; 
The wild Scandinavian boar issued forth 

To wanton in carnage, and wallow in gore : 
O'er countries and kingdoms their fury prevailed, 

No arts could appease them, no arms could repel ; 
But brave Caledonia in vain they assailed, 

As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie tell 



BURNS' SONGS. 309 



The Cameleon-savage disturbed her repose, 

"With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife ; 
Provoked beyond bearing, at last she arose, 

And robbed him at once of his hopes and his life : 
The Anglian lion, the terror of France, 

Oft prowling, ensanguined the Tweed's silver flood : 
But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance, 

He learned to fear in his own native wood. 

Thus bold, independent, unconquered, and free, 

Her bright course of glory for ever shall run : 
For brave Caledonia immortal must be ; 

111 prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun : 
Rectangle-triangle the figure we'll choose, . 

The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base ; 
But brave Caledonia's the hypothenuse ; 

Then ergo, she'll match them, and match them always. 



WHA IS SHE THAT LOES ME ? 
Tune — Morag. 

O WHA is she that loes me, who 

And has my heart a keeping ? 
O sweet is she that loes me, lo?ei 

As dews o* simmer weeping, 
In tears the rose-buds steeping ! 
that's the lassie o' my heart, 

My lassie ever dearer ; 
O that's the queen o' womankind, 
And ne'er a ane to peer her. 

If thou shalt meet a lassie 
In grace and beauty charming, 

That e'en thy chosen lassie, even 

Erewhile thy breast sae warming.. so 

Had ne'er sic powers alarming ; such 

O that's the lassie, &c. 

If thou hadst heard her talking, 

And thy attentions plighted, 
That ilka body talking, every 

But her by thee is slighted, 

And thou art all delighted ; 
O that's the lassie, t&c. 

If thou hast met this fair one ; 

When frae her thou hast parted, frcai 

If every other fair one, 
But her, thou hast deserted, 
And thou art broken-hearted ; 
O that's the lassie o' my heart, 

My lassie ever dearer ; 
O that's the queen o' womankind. 
And ne'er a ane to peer her. c^a 



810 



burns' songs. 



O WH'ARE DID YOU GET? 

Tune — Bonnie Dundee. 

WHARE did you get that hauver meal bannock ? where, oat 
silly blind body, dinna ye see ? don't [cake 

1 gat it frae a brisk young sodger laddie, got, from 
Between St Johnston and bonnie Dundee. 

O gin I saw the laddie that gae ine't ! that, gave 

Aft has he doudled me upon his knee ; dandled 

May Heaven protect my bonnie Scots laddie, 

And send him safe hame to his babio and me ! home 

My blessin's upon thy sweet wee lippie, lip 

My blessin's upon thy bonnie ee-bree ! eyebrow 

Thy smiles are sae like my blithe sodger laddie, so 

Thou's aye the dearer and dearer to me 1 

But I'll big a bower on yon bonnie banks, build 

Where Tay rins wimplin* by sae clear ; winding 

And I'll deed thee in the tartan sae fine, clothfl 

And mak thee a man like thy daddie dear. 



I AM MY MAMMY'S AE BAIRN. 
Tune — Tm owre young to Marry yet. 
I am my mammy's ae bairn, 
Wi' unco folk I weary, sir ; 
And if I live in your house, 

I'm fley'd 'twill make me eerie, sir. 
I'm owre young to marry yet ; 

I'm owre young to marry yet ; 
I'm owre young — 'twad be a sin 
To tak me frae my mammy yet. 

Hallowmas is come and gane, 
The nights are lang in winter, sir ; 

And you and I in wedlock's bands, 
In troth, I dare na venture, sir. 

Fu' loud and shrill the frosty wind 

Blaws through the leafless timmer, sir ; 
But if ye come this gate again, 
I'll aulder be gin simmer, sir. 
I'm owre young to marry yet ; 

I'm owre young to marry yet ; 
I'm owre young — 'twad be a sin 
To tak me frae my mammy yet. 



one 

strange 

afraid, gloomy 
too 

'twould 
from 

All Hallows, gone 
long 

not 



blows, timbei 

way 

older In summer 



UP IN THE MORNING EARLY. 

Tune — Cold blows the Wind. 
Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west, 

The drift is driving sairly ; 
S&e loud and shrill I hear the blast, 

I'm sure it's winter fairly. 



coJd blows 
sore 



BURNS* SONGS. 


811 


CHORUS. "» 




Up in the morning's no for me, 




Up in the morning early ; 




When a* the hills are covered wi' snaw, 


8110^ 


I'm sure it's winter fairly. 




The birds sit cluttering in the thorn, 


Ehivering 


A ; day they fare but sparely ; 




And lang's the night frae e'en to morn — 


long, from 


I'm sure it's winter fairly. 




THERE WAS A LASS. 


Tune — Duncan Davison. 




There was a lass, they ca'd her Meg, 


called 


And she held o'er the moors to spin ; 


■went 


There was a lad that followed her, 




They ca'd him Duncan Davison. 




The moor was dreigh, and Meg was skeigh, 


tedious, proud 


Her favour Duncan could na win ; 




For wi' the rock she wad him knock, 


distaff, would 


And aye she shook the temper-pin * 




As o'er the moor they lightly foor, 


went 


A burn was clear, a glen was green, 




Upon the banks they eased their shanks, 


legs 


And aye she set the wheel between : 




But Duncan swore a haly aith, 


holy oath 


That Meg should be a bride the morn, 




Then Meg took up her spinnin' graith, 


furniture 


And flang them a' out o'er the burn. 


flung 


We'll big a house — a wee, wee house, 


build 


And we will live like king and queen, 




Sae blithe 'and merry we will be 




When ye set by the wheel at e'en. 




A man may drink and no be drunk ; 




A man may fight and no be slain ; 




A man may kiss a bonnie lass, 




And aye be welcome back again. 




THE PLOUGHMAN, 


The ploughman he's a Bonnie lad, 




His mind is ever true, Jo, 




His garters knit below his knee, 




His bonnet it is blue, Jo. 




Then up wi't a', my ploughman lad, 




And hey my merry ploughman ; 




Of a' the trades that I do ken, 


knoTj 


Commend me to the ploughman. 


» 


* A long screw used to tighten the b*.nd on the \ 


heel. 



IJ9 



BURNS' SONGS. 



I hae been east), I hae been west, 
I hae been at St Johnston ; 

The bonniest sight that e'er I saw, 
Was the ploughman laddie dancin*. 
Up wi't, &c. 

Snaw-white stockins on his legs, 
And siller buckles glancin* ; 

A guid blue bonnet on his head, 
And oh, but he was handsome. 
Up wi't, &c. 



hare 



snow 
tfiver 
good 



MY HOGGIE. 
What will I do gin my hoggie die, 



If, young sheep 



My joy, my pride, my hoggie ? 
My only beast, I had nae mae, 
And oh, but I was vogie. 

The lee-lang night we watched the faulcl, 

Me and my faithfu' doggie, 
We heard nought but the roaring linn, 

Amang the braes sae scroggie. full of stunted bushes 

But the howlet cried frae the castle wa', owl, from 

The blutter frae the boggie, 
The tod replied upon the hill — 

I trembled for my hoggie. 

When day did daw and cocks did craw, 

The morning it was foggie, 
An unco tyke lap o'er the dyke, 

And maist has killed my hoggie. 



no more 
vain 

livelong, fold 



cascade 



mire-snipe, bog 
fox 



dawn, crow 



strange dog, jumped 
almost [wall 



SIMMER'S A PLEASANT TIME, 

Tune — Aye WauUn 0. 

Simmer's a pleasant time, 
Flowers of every colour ; 
The water rins o'er the heugh, 
And I long for my true lover. 
Aye waukin 0, 

Waukin still and wearie : 
Sleep I can get n»ane 
For thinking on my dearie. 

When I sleep I dream, 

When I wauk I'm eerie : 
Sleep I can get nane 

For thinking on my dearie. 

Lanely night comes on, 

A' the lave are sleeping ; 
I think on my bonnie lad, 

And bleer my een wi* greetin' 



summer 

runs, bank 

always waking 

none 

watch, timorous 



lonely 
rest 

eyes, weeping 



burns' songs. 



813 



1URST WHEN MAGGY WAS MY CARE. 

Tune— Whistle o'er the Lave o't 

First when Maggy was my care, 
Heaven I thought was in her air ; 
Now we're married — speir na mair — •* 

Whistle o'er the lave o't. 
Meg was meek, and Meg was mild, 
Bonnie Meg was Nature's child ; 
Wiser men than me's beguiled — 

Whistle o'er the lave o't. 



How we live, my Meg and me, 
How we love, and how we 'gree, 
I care na by how few may see- 
Whistle o'er the lave o't. 
Wha I wish were maggots' meat, 
Dished up in her winding-sheet, 
I could write— but Meg maun see't— 
Whistle o'er the lave o't. 



JAMIE, COME TRY ME. 

Jamie, come try me ; 

.Jamie, come try me ; 
If thou would win my love, 

Jamie, come try me. 

If thou should ask my love, 

Could I deny thee ? 
If thou would win my love, 

Jamie, come try me. 

If thou should kiss me, love, 
Wha could espy thee ? 

If thou would be my love, 
Jamie, come try me. 



AWA, WHIGS, AWA ! 

Tune — Awa, Whigs, awa. 



ask no mors 
rest 



agree 
care not 



who 
must 



vrho 



Awa, W r higs, awa ! 

Awa, Whigs, awa ! 
Ye 're but a pack o' traitor louns, 

Ye'll do nae good at a'. 

Our thrissles flourished fresh and fair, 
And bonnie bloomed our roses ; 

But Whigs came like a frost in June, 
And withered a' our posies. 


away 

fellows 
no 

thistles 



*H BURNS' SONGS. 


Our sad decay in Church and State 




Surpasses my descriving ; 


describing 


The Whigs came o'er us for a curse, 




And we hae done wi' thriving. 


have 


Grim vengeance lang has ta'en a nap, 


long 


But we may see him wauken ; 


awaken 


Lang be the day when royal heads 




Are hunted like a maukin. 

» 


hare 


WHARE HAE YE BEEN ? 




Tune — KillicrcmJc ie. 




Whare hae ye been sae braw, lad ? 


where, so 


Whare hae ye been sae brankie, ? 


gaudy 


Oh, whare hae ye been sae braw, lad ? 




Cam ye by Killiecrankie, ? 




An ye had been whare I hae been, 


if, have 


Ye wad na been sae cantie, ; 


wouldn't, merry 


An ye had seen what I hae seen, 




On the braes of Killiecrankie, 0. 




I fought at land, I fought at sea ; 




At hame I fought my auntie, ; 


home 


But, worst of a', I met Dundee, 




On the braes o' Killiecrankie, 0. 




The bauld Pitcur fell in a furr, 


bold, furrow 


And Clavers got a clankie, ; 


blow 


Or I had fed an Athole gled, 


kite 


On the braes o' Killiecrankie, 0. 




FOE, A' THAT, AND A' THAT. 




Though women's minds, like winter winds 




May shift and turn, and a' that ; 




The noblest breast adores them maist, 


most 


A consequence I draw that. 




Eor a' that, and a' that, 




And twice as mickle's a' that. 


much 


The bonnie lass that I loe best, 


love 


Shall be my ain for a' that. 


own 


YOUNG JOCKEY. 




Tune — Young Jockey 




Young Jockey was the blithest lad 




In a' our town or here, awa : 




Fu' blithe he whistled at the gaud, 


plough 


IV lightly danoed he in the ha' 





BURNS SONGS. 



315 



He roosed my een, sae bonnie blue, 
He roosed niy waist, sae genty sma' ; 

And aye my heart came to my mou', 
When ne'er a body heard or saw. 

My Jockey toils upon the plain, 

Through wind and weet, through frost and snaw ; 
And o'er the lea I leuk fu' fain, 

When Jockey's owsen hameward ca'. 
And aye the night comes round again, 

When in his arms he takes me a' ; 
And aye he vows he'll be my ain, 

As lang's he has a breath to draw. 



praised, eye? 

so neatly 

mouth 



wet 
look 
oxen 



THE TITHER MORN. 
To a Highland Air. 

The tither morn, when I forlorn other 

Aneath an aik sat moaning, beneath, oak 
I did na trow, I'd see my jo, not, believe, lover 

Beside me, gin the gloaming. by the evening 
But he sae trig, lap o'er the rig, so neat, leapt, ridge 

And dawtingly did cheer me, endearingly 

When I, what reck, did least expec', heed 

To see my lad so near me. 

His bonnet he, a thought ajee, awry 

Cocked sprush when first he clasped me ; spruce 

And I, I wat. wi' fainness grat, wot, wept 

AVhile in his grips he pressed me. gripe 

That weary war ! I late and air, early 

Hae baxn'd since Jock departed ; have 
But now as glad I'm wi' my lad, 

As short syne broken-hearted. time ago 

Fu' aft at e'en wi' dancing keen, oft 

When a* were blithe and merry, 

I cared na by, sae sad was I, not although 

In absence o' my dearie. 
But, now I'm blest, my mind's at rest, 

I'm happy wi' my Johnny : 

At kirk and fair, I'se aye be there, ril always 

And be as canty's ony. happy 



AS I WAS A WANDERING. 
Tune — Rinn Meudial mo ifhealladh. 

As I was wandering ae midsummer e'enin', 
The pipers and youngsters were making their game ; 

Amang them I spied my faithless fause lover, 
Which bled a' the wounds o' my dolour again. 



false 
grief 



lift 



BURNS SONGS. 



Weel, since he has left me, may pleasure gae wi' him; go 

I may be distressed, but I winna complain ; wont 

I flatter my fancy I may get anither, another 

My heart it shall never be broken for ane. one 

I couldna get sleeping till dawing for greetin', dawn, 

The tears trickled down like the hail and the rain : [weeping 

Had I no got greetin', my heart wad ha' broken, not, would 

For oh ! love forsaken's a tormenting pain. [have 

Although he has left me for greed o* the siller, money 

I dinna envy him the gains he can win ; dont 

I rather wad bear a' the lade o' my sorrow load 

Than ever hae acted sae faithless to him. have, so 



THE WEARY PUND O' TOW. 

Tune— The Weary Pund o' Tow. 

The weary pund, the weary pund, pound 

The weary pund o' tow ; 
I think my wife will end her life 

Before she spin her tow. 

I bought my wife a stane o' lint stone, flax 

As guid as e'er did grow ; good 

And a' that she has made o' that, 

Is ae poor pund o' tow. one 

There sat a bottle in a bole, 

Beyont the ingle lowe, fire flame 

And aye she took the tither souk, other suck 

To drouk the stowrie tow. drench, dusty 

Quoth I, for shame, ye dirty dame, 

Gae spin your tap o' tow I go, portion 

She took the rock, and wi' a knock 

She brak it o'er my pow. head 

At last her feet — I sang to see't — 

Gaed foremost o'er the knowe ; went, knoll 

And or I wad anither jad, ere, wed, jade 

I'll wallop in a tow. hang, rope 



GANE IS THE DAY. 

Tune — Guidwife, count the Lawin. 
Gane is the day, and mirk's the night, gone, dark 

But we'll ne'er stray for fau't o' light, want 

For ale and brandy's stars and moon, 
And bluid-red wine's the rising sun. 

Then guidwife, count the lawin, reckoning 

The lawin, the lawin ; 
Then guidwife, count the lawin, 

And liring a coggie mair. cupful more 





burns' songs. 


8ii 




There's wealth and ease for gentlemen, 






And simple folk maun fight and fen ; 


must, shift 




But here we're a' in ae accord, 


one 




For ilka man that's drunk's a lord. 


every 




My coggie is a haly pool, 


cup, holy 




That heals the wounds o' care and dool ; 


S01TOTV 




And pleasure is a wanton trout, 






An ye drink but deep ye'll find him out. 






IT IS NA, JEAN, THY BONNIE FACE 






Tune — The Maid's Complaint. 






It is na, Jean, thy bonnie face 


not 




Nor shape that I admire, 






Although thy beauty and thy grace 






Might weel awake desire. 
Something, in ilka part o' thee, 


well 




every 




To praise, to love, I find ; 






But dear as is thy form to me, 






Still dearer is thy mind. 






Nae mair ungenerous wish I hae, no more, have 




Nor stronger in my breast, 






Than if I canna mak thee sae, 


can't, so 




At least to see thee blest. 






Content am I, if Heaven shall give 






But happiness to thee : 






And as wi' thee I'd wish to live, 






For thee I'd bear to die. 




MY COLLIER LADDIE. 




Tune— The Collier Laddie. 






Where live ye, my bonnie lass ? 






And tell me what they ca' ye ; 


call 




My name, she says, is Mistress Jean, 






And I follow the Collier Laddie. 






See you not yon hills and dales, 






The sun shines on sae brawlie ! 






They a' are mine, and they shall be thine, 






Gin ye'll leave your Collier Laddie. 






Ye shall gang in gay attire, 


go 




Weel buskit up sae gaudy ; 


di e*>sed so 




And ane to wait on every hand, 


one 




Gin ye'll leave your Collier Laddie. 






Though ye had a' the sun shines on, 






And the earth conceals sae lowly ; 






I wad turn my back on you and it a', 


would 




And embrace my Collier Laddie. 





II A BURNS SONGS. 

1 can win my five pennies in a day, 

And spen't at night fu' brawlie ; 
And make my bed in the Collier's neuk, ooraei 

And lite wi' my Collier Laddie. 

Lnve for luve is the bargain for me, 

Though the wee cot-house should haudme ; holJ 

And the world before me to win my bread, 

And fair fa' my Collier Laddie. 



YE JACOBITES BY NAME. 
Tune — Ye Jacobites by Name. 

Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear, give an ear ; 
Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear ; 
Ye Jacobites by name, 

Your fautes I will proclaim, faults 

Your doctrines I maun blame — • must 

You shall hear. 

What is right and what is wrang, by the law, by the law ? 

What is right and what is wrang by the law ? wrong 

What is right and what is wrang ? 

A short sword and a lang, long 

A weak arm, and a Strang strong 

For to draw. 

What makes heroic strife, famed afar, famed afar ? 
What makes heroic strife famed afar? 
What makes heroic strife ? 
To whet th' assassin's knife, 
Or haunt a parent's life 
Wi' bluidie war. bloody 

Then let your schemes alone, in the state, in the state ; 
Then let your schemes alone in the state ; 
Then let your schemes alone, 
Adore the rising sun, 
And leave a man undone 
To his fate. 



LADY MARY ANN. 

Tune — Craigton's Growing. 

Oh, Lady Mary Ann looked o'er the castle wa' ; wall 

She saw three bonnie boys playing at the ba' ; ball 

The youngest he was the flower amang them a' — 
My bonnie laddie's young, but he's growin' yet, 

O father ! father ! an ye think it fit, If 

We'll send him a year to the college yet : 
We'll sew a green ribbon round about his hat, 
And that will let them ken he's to marry yet. 



BURNS' SONGS. 


319 


Lady Mary Ann was a flower i' the dew, 
Sweet was its smell, and bonnie was its hue ; 
And the langer it blossomed the sweeter it grew : 
For the lily in the bud will be bonnier yet. 


longer 


Young Charlie Cochrane was the sprout of an aik ; 
Bonnie and bloomin' and straught was its make : 
The sun took delight to shine for its sake, 
And it will be the brag o' the forest yet. 


oak 

straight 

boast 


The simmer is gane when the leaves they were green, 
And the days are awa that we hae seen ; 
But far better days I trust will come again, 
For my bonnie laddie's young, but he's growin' yet. 


gone 
away 


KENMURE'S ON AND AWA. 




Tune — Kenmure's on and awa., Willie. 




Kenmure's on and awa, Willie ! 

Kenmure's on and awa ! 
And Kenmure's lord's the bravest lord 

That ever Galloway saw. 


away 


Success to Kenmure's band, Willie 1 
Success to Kenmure's band ; 

There's no a heart that fears a Whig 
That rides by Kenmure's hand. 




Here's Kenmure's health in wine, Willie ! 

Here's Kenmure's health in wine ; 
There ne'er was a coward o' Kenmure's blude, 

Nor yet o' Gordon's line. 




Kenmure's lads are men, Willie ! 

Kenmure's lads are men ; m 
Their hearts and swords are metal true — 

And that their faes shall ken. 


foes, kno^ 


They'll live or die wi' fame, Willie ! 

They'll live or die wi' fame ; 
But soon, wi' sounding victorie, 

May Kenmure's lord come hame. 




Here's him that's far awa, Willie ! 

Here's him that's far awa ! 
And here's the flower that I love best — 

The rose that's like the snaw ! 


8EOY) 

ION. 


SUCH A PARCEL OF ROGUES IN A NAT 


Tune — A Parcel of Rogues in a Nation. 




Farewell to a' our Scottish fame, 
Fareweel our ancient glory, 

Fareweel even to the Scottish name, 
Sae famed in martial story. 


90 



320 BURNS* SONGS. 

Now Sark rins o'er the Solway sands, runa 

And Tweed rins to the ocean, 
To mark where England's province stands — 

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation. 

What force or guile could not subdue 

Through many warlike ages, 
Is wrought now by a coward few, 

For hireling traitors' wages. 
The English steel we could disdain, 

Secure in valour's station ; 
But English gold has been our bane — 

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation. 

would, ere I had seen the day 
That treason thus could fell us, 

My auld gray head had lien in clay, Uln 

Wi* Bruce and loyal Wallace ! 

But pith and power, till my last hour, 
I'll make this declaration ; 

We're bought and sold for English gold- 
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation. 



THE CARLES OF DYSART. 

Tune— Hey, ea 1 through. 

Up wi' the carles o' Dysart, men 

And the lads o' Buckhaven, 
And the kimmers o' Largo, gossips 

And the lasses o' Leven. 
Hey, ca' through, ca' through, 

For we hae mickle ado ; much 

Hey, ca' through, ca' through, 
For we hae mickle ado. 

We hae tales to tell, have 

And we hae sangs to sing ; 
We hae pennies to spend, 

And we hae pints to bring. 

We'll live a' our days, 

And them that come behin', 
Let them do the like, 

And spend the gear they win. wealth 



THE SLAVE'S LAMENT. 

It was in Sweet Senegal that my foes did me enthral, 

For the lands of Virginia, O ; . 
Torn Irom that lovely shore, and must never see it more. 

And alas I am weary, weary, ! 



BUKNS* SONGS. 323 



All on that charming coast is no bitter snow or frost, 

Like the lands of Virginia, O ; 
There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow, 

And alas I am weary, weary, O ! 

The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear, 

In the lands of Virginia, O ; 
And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear, 

And alas I am weary, weary, ! 



COMING THROUGH THE RYE. 

Tune — Coming Through, the Rye. 

Coming through the rye, poor body, 

Coming through the rye, 
She draiglet a' her petticoatie, draggled 

Coming through the rye. 

Jenny's a' wat, poor body, wet 

Jenny's seldom dry ; 
She draiglet a' her petticoatie, 
Coming through the rye. 

Gin a body meet a body if 

Coming through the rye, 
Gin a body kiss a body, 

Need a body cry ? 

Gin a body meet a body 

Coming through the glen, 
Gin a body kiss a body, 

Need the world ken ? know 



YOUNG JAMIE, PRIDE OF A* THE PLAIN. 

Tune — The Carlin o' the Glen. 

Young Jamie, pride of a' the plain, 

Sae gallant and sae gay a swain ; so 

Through a' our lasses he did rove, 

And reigned resistless king of love : 

But now wi' sighs and starting tears, 

He strays amang the woods and briers ; 

Or in the glens and rocky caves 

He sad complaining dowie raves : mournful 

I wha sae late did range and rove, who so 

And changed with every moon my love, 

I little thought the time was near, 

Repentance I should buy sae dear. 

The slighted maids my torment see, 

And laugh at a* the pangs I dree ; suffer 

While she, my cruel, scornfu' fair, 

Forbids me e'er to see her mair ! mora 



S22 BURNS* SONGS. 



THE LASS OF ECCLEFECHAN. 

Tune— JacJcy Latin. 

Gat ye me, gat ye me, got 

O gat ye me wi' naething ; nothing 
Rock and reel, and spinnin' wheel, 

A mickle quarter basin. large 
Bye attour, my gutcher has bsaides, grandsire 

A heigh house and a laigh ane, hi^-li, low one 

A' forbye my bonnie sel', besides, self 

The toss of Ecclefechan. choice 

had your tongue now, Luokie Laing ; hold 

haud your tongue and jauner ; prattle 

1 held the gate till you I met, road 

Syne I began to wander : then 

I tint my whistle and my sang, io«st 

1 tint my peace and pleasure ; 

But your green graff, now, Luckie Laing. grave 

Wad airt me to my treasure. would direct 



THE CAKDIN* O'T. 

Tune — Salt-Jish and Dwnplings 

I coft a stane o' haslock woo', bought, stone, finest 

To make a coat to Johnny o't ; 
For Johnny is my only jo ; 

I loe him best of ony yet. love, any 

The cardin' o't, the spinnin* o't, 

The warpin' o't, the winnin' o't ; 
When ilka ell cost me a groat, every 

The tailor staw the lynin' o't. stole, lining 

For though his locks be lyart gray, mixed 

And though his brow be beld aboon ; tald, above 

Yet I hae seen him on a day, 

The pride of a' the parishen. parish 



THE LASS THAT MADE THE BED TO ME. 

Tune — TJie Peacock. 

When winter's wind was blawing cauld, cold 

As to the north I bent my way, 

The mirksome night did me enfauld, dark, erdald 

I knew na where to lodge till day. • not 

A charming girl I chanced to meet, 

Just in the middle o' my care, 
And kindly she did me invite 

Her father's humble cot to share. 



BURNS' SONGS. 828 

Her hair was like the gowd sae fine, gold so 

Her teeth were like the ivorie, 
Her cheeks like lillies dipt in wine, 

The lass that made the bed to me. 

Her bosom was the drifted snaw, 

Her limbs like marble fair to see ; 
A finer form nane ever saw none 

Than hers that made the bed to me. 

She made the bed baith lang and braid, both, broad 

Wi a twa white hands she spread it down, two 

She bade " Guid-night," and smiling said : 

" I hope yell sleep baith saft and so.un\ w soft 

Upon the morrow, when I raise, 

I thanked her for her courtesie ; 
A blush cam o'er the comely face 

Of her that made the bed for me. 

I clasped her waist and kissed her syne ; then 

The tear stude twinkling in her ee ; stood, eye 

" dearest maid, gin ye'll be mine, if 

Ye aye sail mak the bed to me." shall 



THE HIGHLAND LADDIE. 

Tune — If thou'lt play me fair play. 

The bonniest lad that e'er I saw, 

Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie, 
Wore a plaid, and was fu' braw, 

Bonnie Highland laddie. 
On his head a bonnet blue, 

Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie ; 
His royal heart was firm and true, 

Bonnie Highland laddie. 

Trumpets sound, and cannons roar, 

Bonnie lassie, Lowland lassie ; 
And a' the hills wi' echoes roar, 

Bonnie Lowland lassie. 
Glory, honour, now invite, 

Bonnie lassie, Lowland lassie, 
For freedom and my king to fight, 

Bonnie Lowland lassie. 

The sun a backward course shall take, 

Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie, 
Ere aught thy manly courage shake, 

Bonnie Highland laddie. 
Go ! for yourself procure renown, 

Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie ; 
And for your lawful king his crown- 

Bonnie Highland laddie. 



!2i BURNS* SONGS. 



SAE FAR AW A. 

Tune— Dalkeith Maiden Bridge. 

O SAD and heavy should I part, 

But for her sake sae far awa ; so, away 

Unknowing what my way may thwart, 

My native land sae far awa. 
Thou that of a' things Maker art, 

That formed this fair sae far awa, 
Gie body strength, and 111 ne'er start give 

At thi3 my way sae far awa. 

How true is love to pure desert, 

So love to her sae far awa ; 
And nought can heal my bosom's smart, 

"While, oh, she is sae far awa. 
Nane other love, nae other dart, eo 

I feel, but hers sae far awa ; 
But fairer never touched a heart, 

Than hers, the fair, sae far awa. 



I'LL AYE CA' IN BY YON TOWN. 

I'll aye ca* in by yon town, call 

And by yon garden green again ; 
111 aye ca' in by yon town, 

And see my bonnie Jean again. 

There's nane sail ken, there's nane sail guess, none, shall 

What brings me back the gate. again, way [know 

But she my fairest faithfu' lass, 

And stowlins we sail meet again. stealthily 

Shell wander by the aiken tree, oak 

When trystin' time draws near again ; 
And when her lovely form I see, 

haith, she's doubly dear again. indeed 



BANNOCKS 0' BARLEY. 




Tune — Hie Killogie. 




Bannocks o' bear-meal, 


cakes, barley 


Bannocks o' barley ; 




Here's to the Highlandman's 




Bannocks o' barley ! 




Wha in a brulzie 


broil 


Will first cry a parley ? 




Never the lads wi* 




The bannocks o' barley ! 





burns' songs. 


325 


Bannocks o' bear-meal, 




Bannocks o' barley ; 




Here's to the lads wi' 




The bannocks o 1 barley 1 




Wha in his wae-days 


who, sad 


Were loyal to Charlie ? — 




Wha but the lads wi* 




The bannocks o' barley ? 




IT WAS A' FOR OUR RIGHTFU' KING. 




Tune— It wa$ a? for our rightfu? King, 




It was a* for our rightfu' king 




We left fair Scotland's strand ; 




It was a* for our rightfu' king 




We e'er saw Irish land, 




My dear ; 




We e'er saw Irish land. 




Now a' is done that men can do, 




And a' is done in vain ; 




My love and native land farewell, 




For I maun cross the main, 


must 


My dear ; 


! 


For I maun cross the main. 




He turned him right, and round about 




Upon the Irish shore ; 




And gae his bridle-reins a shake, 


gave 


With adieu for evermore, 




My dear ; 




With adieu for evermore. 




The sodger from the wars returns, 


soldier 


The sailor frae the main ; 


from 


But I hae parted frae my love, 


have 


Never to meet again, 

My dear ; 
Never to meet again. 






When day is gane, and night is come, 


gone 


And a' folk bound to sleep ; 




I think on him that's far awa', 




The lee-lang night, and weep, 

My dear ; 
The lee-lang night, and weep. 


livelong 




THE HIGHLAND WIDOW'S LAMENT. 


Oh, I am come to the low countrie. 




Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! 




Without a penny in my purse, 




To buy a meal to me. 





32 C 


burns' songs. 




It was na sae in tfie Highland hills, 


not so 




Och-on, och-oif, och-rie I 






Nae woman in the country wide 


no 




Sae happy was as ine. 






For then I had a score o' kye, 


kine 




Och-on, och-on, och-rie 1 






Feeding on yon hills so high, 






And giving milk to me. 






And there I had threescore o' yowes, 


ewes 




Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! 






Skipping on yon bonnie knowes, 


knolls 




And casting woo* to me. 


wool 




I was the happiest of the clan, 






Sair, sair may I repine ; 


tore 




For Donald was the brawest lad, 






And Donald he was mine. 






Till Charlie Stewart cam at last, 






Sae far to set us free ; 


so 




My Donald's arm was wanted then, 






For Scotland and for me. 






Their waefu' fate what need I tell ? 


woeful 




Right to the wrang did yield ; 


•wrong 




My Donald and his country fell 






Upon Culloden's field. 






Oh, I am come to the low countrie, 






Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! 






Nae woman in the world wide 




9 


Sae wretched now as me. 

STEER HER UP. 

Ttn*E — steer her up> and hand her gaun. 






steer her up and haud her gaun — stir. 


keep, going 




Her mother's at the mill, jo ; 






And gin she winna take a man, 


if, won't 




E'en let her tak her will, jo :. 






First shore her wi' a kindly kiss, 


approach 




And ca' another gill, jo ; 






And gin she take the thing amiss, 


if 




E'en let her flyte her fill, jo. 


scold 




steer her up, and be na blate, 


bashful 




And gin she take it ill, jo, 






Then lea'e the lassie till her fate, 






And time nae langer spill, jo : 


no longer 




Ne'er break you heart for ae rebute, 


one repulse 




But think upon it still, jo ; 






Then gin the lassie winna do't, 






Ye'll fin' anither will, jo. 


another 



BITO.NS* SOaNGS. 


827 


WEE WILLIE GRAY. 




Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet, 




Peel a willow-wand, to be him boots and jacket ; 




The rose upon the brier will be him trouse and doublet, 




The rose upon the brier will be him trouse and doublet. 




Wee Willie Gray, and hisleather wallet, 




Twice a lilie flower will be him sark and cravat ; 


shirt 


Feathers of a flie wad feather up his bonnet, 


fly 


Feathers of a flie wad feather up his bonnet. 




AYE MY WIFE SHE DANG ME. 




Tune — My Wife she dang me. 




aye my wife she dang me, 


pushed 


And aft my wife did bang me, 


oft, beat 


If ye gie a woman a' her will, 


give 


Guid faith, she'll soon o'ergang ye. 


oppress 


On peace and rest my mind was bent, 




And fool I was I married ; 




But never honest man's intent 




As teeeiblt miscarried. 




GUID ALE COMES. 




guid ale comes and guid ale goes, 


good 


Guid ale gars me sell my hose, 


makes 


Sell my hose and pawn my shoon ; 


shoes 


Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. 


up 


I had sax owsen in a pleugh, six oxen, plough 


They drew a' weel eneugh, well enough 


I selt them a' just ane by ane ; 


sold, one 


Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. 




ROBIN SHURE IN HAIRST. 


CHORUS. 




Robin shure in hairst, 


sheared 


I shure wi' him ; 




Not a heuk had I, 


hook 


Yet I stack by him. 


stuck 


I gaed up to Dunse, 


went 


To warp a wab o' plaiden ; 


web 


At his daddie's yett, 


gate 


Wha sp4k me but Robin f 


spoke 



8?8 BURNS SONGS. 


Was na Robin bauld, was not, hold 


Though I was a cotter, 




Played me sic a trick, 


such 


And me the eller's dochter ? eldei 


'a daughter 


Robin promised me 




A' my winter vittle ; 


provisions 


Nae haet he had but three 


none 


Goose feathers and a whittle. 


knife 


SWEETEST MAY. 




Sweetest May, let Love inspire thee ; 




Take a heart which he desires thee ; 




As thy constant slave regard it ; 




For its faith and truth reward it. 




Proof o' shot to birth or money, 




Not the wealthy but the bonnie ; 




Not high-born, but noble-minded, 




In Love's silken band can bind it. 




THERE WAS A BONNIE LASS. 




There was a bonnie lass, and a bonnie, bonnie lass, 




And she loed her bonnie laddie dear, 


loved 


Till war's loud alarms stole her laddie frae her arms, 


from 


Wi' monie a sigh and a tear. 


many 


Over sea, over shore, where the cannons loudly roar, 




He still was a stranger to fear ; 




And nought could him quail, or his bosom assail, 




But the bonnie lass he loed sae dear. 


so 


CROWDIE. 




that I had ne'er been married, 




I would never had nae care ; 


would, no 


Now I've gotten wife and bairns, 




And they cry crowdie evermair. 


porridge 


Ance crowdie, twice crowdie, 


once 


Three times crowdie in a day ; 
Gin ye crowdie ony mair, 




any 


Ye'll crowdie a* my meal away. 




Waefu' want and hunger fley me, woeful, fright 


Glowrin' by the hallan en' ; staring, doom-ay 


Sair I fecht them at the door, 


sore, fight 


But aye I'm eerie they come ben. 


dismal, in 



BURNS' SONGS. 



jrowdie, twice crowdie.. 

Three times crowdie in a day; 
Gin ye crowdie ony mair, 

Ye '11 crowdie a' my meal away. 



blood, Christmas, 
[blow 

subdue 






THE BLUDE-RED ROSE AT YULE .MAY BLAAV, 

Tu>tE — To daunton me. 

The blude-red rose at Yule may 1 1 

The sin 

The frost may frees iea ; 

But an auld man shall never daunton me. 

me, and me so young, 
WV his fause heart and natt'ring tongue 
ia the thing see : 

dd man shall never daunton me. 

For a' his meal and a' his maut, 

' his fresh 1 1 
For a' his gold a: :nie, 

An auld man shall never daunton me. 

His gear may buy him kye and yc i 
His ge ar m ay buy bin - 

But me he ; " 

For an auld man shall never daunton me, 

clow, 
Wi 3 fa gab and his auld held ( ! ' 

.he rain rins down fro::: :-eVd ee 

That auld man inton me. 



salt 
money 



wealth, cows, 



limps, double, car. 
mouth, bald head 

old 



SSILLIS* BANK?. 

Now bank and brae are claith'd in gi 

And seat y sparing; 

By Girvan's fairy-haunted stream 

The birdies nit on wanton wing. 
Td Cassillis* banks when e'ening i 

There wi 1 my Mary let me flee, 
There catch her ilka glance of love, 

The bonnie blink o" Mary's ee ! 

ohield wha ' warld'a wealth 

Is aften laird o* meikle care ; 

try she is a' my sun — 
Ah ! Fortune canna gie me mair, 
Then let me range by Cassillis' banks. 
Wi' her, the lassie dear to me, 

itch her Oka glan sc : 
The bonnie blink o' Mary' 






eye 



who, w 

own 

, give, more 



ISO 



BURNS' songs. 



HUNTING SONG. 
Tttkk — I red you beware at the Hunting. 
The heather was blooming, the meadows were mawn, 
Our lads gaed a hunting ane day at the dawn, 
Owre moors and owre mosses and mony a glen, 
At length they discovered a bonny moor-hen. 
I red you beware at the hunting, young men ; 
I red you beware at the hunting, young men ; 
Tak some on the wing, and some as they spring, 
But cannily steal on a bonnie moor-hen. 

Sweet brushing the dew from the brown heather-bells, 
Her colours betray'd her on yon mossy fells ; 
Her plumage out-lustered the pride o' the spring, 
And oh ! as she wantoned gay on the wing. 
I red you beware, &c. 

Auld Phoebus himsel, as he peep'd o'er the hill, 
In spite, at her plumage he tried his skill ; 
He levell'd his rays where she bask'd on the brae — 
His rays were outshone, and but mark'd where she lay, 
I red you beware, &c. 

They hunted the valley, they hunted the hill ; 
The best of our lads wi' the best o' their skill ; 
But still as the fairest she sat in their sight, 
Then, whirr ! she was over a mile at a flight. 
I red you beware, &c. 



mowed 

went, one 

oyer 

warn 



quietly 



hills 



HEY, THE DUSTY MILLER. 

TtNK— The Dusty Miller. 

Hey, the dusty miller, 

And his dusty coat ; 

He will win a shilling, 

Or he spend a groat. 

Busty was the coat, 

Busty was the colour,. 
Busty was the kis* 

That I got frae the miller. 

Hey the dusty miller, 
And his dusty sack ; 
Leeze me on the calling 
Fills the dusty peck — 
Fills the dusty peck, 

Brings the dusty siller ; 
I wad gie my coatie 
For the dusty miller. 



before 



from 



blessings 



monej 
would give 



HER FLOWING LOCKS. 

Her flowing locks, the raven's wing, 
Adown her neck and bosom hing ; 



has 2 



BURNS* SONGS. o31 



How sweet unto that breast to cling, 

And round that neck entwine her ! 
Her lips are roses wat wi' dew, wet 

Oh, what a feast her bonnie mou' ! mouth 

Her cheeks a mair celestial hue, more 

A crimson still diviner. 



RATTLIN* ROARIN' WILLIE. 

Tune — Rattan 1 Roarin' Willie. 
Oh, rattlin' roarin' Willie, 

Oh, he held to the fair, went 

And for to sell his fiddle, 

And buy some other ware ; 
But parting wi' his fiddle, 

The saut tear blin't his ee ; salt, eye 

And rattlin* roarin' Willie, 

Ye're welcome hame to me ! homo 

Oh Willie, come sell your fiddle, 

Oh sell your fiddle sae fine ; 
Oh Willie, come sell your fiddle, 

And buy a pint o' wine. 
If I should sell my fiddle, 

The warl would think I was mad ; world 

For many a rantin' day many 

My fiddle and I hae had. have 

As I cam by Crochallan, 

I cannily keekit ben — quietly looked in 

Rattlin* roarin' Willie 

Was sitting at yon board en' — 
Sitting at yon board en', 

And amang guid companie ; among good 

Rattlin' roarin' Willie, 

Ye're welcome hame to me ! 



THE CAPTAIN'S LADY. 

Tune — Mount and Go. 
When the drums do beat, 

And the cannons rattle, 
Thou shalt sit in state, 

And see thy love in battle. 

CHORUS. 

Oh mount and go, 

Mount and make you ready; 
Oh mount and go, 

And be the captain's lady. 

When the vanquish 'd foe 
Sues for peace and quiet, 

To the shades we'll go, 
And in love enjoy it. 



E*2 BURNS' SONGS. 



MY LOVE SHE'S BUT A LASSIE YET. 
Tune — Lady Badimcoth's Reel 

My love she's but a lassie yet, 

My love she's but a lassie yet ; 
We'll let her stand a year or twa, two 

She'll no be half sae saucy yet. eo 

I rue the day I sought her, O, 

I rue the day I sought her, O ; 
Wha gets her Deeds na say she's woo'd, who, not 

But he may say he's bought her, ! 

Come draw a drap o* the best o't yet, drop 

Come draw a drap o' the best o't yet ; 
Gae seek for pleasure where ye will, go 

But here I never miss'd it yet. 
We're a' dry wi' drinking o't, 

We're a' dry wi' drinking o't ; 
The minister kiss'd the fiddler's wife, 

And couldna preach for thinking o't. 



EPPIE ADAIR, 

Tune — My Eppie. 
And oh ! my Eppie, 
My jewel, my Eppie 
Wha wadna he happy who would not 

Wi' Eppie Adair ? 
By love, and by beauty, 
By law, and by duty, 
I swear to be true to 

My Eppie Adair ! 

And oh ! my Eppie, 
My jewel, my Eppie, 
Wha wadna be happy 

Wi' Eppie Adair ? 
A' pleasure exile me, 
Dishonour defile me, 
If e'er I beguile thee 

My Eppie Adair ! . 



THERE'S A YOUTH IN THIS CITY. 

To a Gaelic Air. 
There's a youth in this city, it were a great pity 

That he frae our lasses should wander awa ; from, away 

For he's bonnie and braw, weel-favoured and a*, well 

. And his hair has a natural buckle and a'. 
His coat is the hue of his bonnet sae blue ; so 

His fecket is white as the new-driven snaw ; waistcoat, snow 
His hose they are blae, and his shoon like the slae, blue, shoes, sloe 

And hig clear siller buckles they dazzle us a'. silvei 



1 burls' songs. 

i 


333 


For beauty and fortune the laddie's been courtin' ; 


[dower'd 


Weel-featured,weel-tocher'd, weel-mounted, and braw; -well- 


But chiefly the siller, that gars him gang till her, 


money, makes, 


The penny's the jewel that beautifies a'. 


[go 


There's Megwi' the mailen, that fain wad a-haen him 


; farm, 


And Susie, whose daddy was laird o' the ha' ; 


[would, taken 


There's lang-tocher'd Nancy maist fetters his fancy- 


- almost 


But the laddie's dear sel' he loes dearest of a'. 


loves 
&Y. 


THENIEL MENZIES' BONNIE MAI 


Tune— TJie Ruffian's Rant. 




In coming by the brig o' Dye, 


bridge 


At Darlet we a blink did tarry ; 


moment 


As day was dawin in the sky, 


dawning 


We drank a health to bonnie Mary. 




Theniel Menzies' bonnie Mary ; 




Theniel Menzies' bonnie Mary ; 




Charlie Gregor tint his plaidie, 


lost 


Kissin' Theniel 's bonnie Mary. 




Her een sae bright, her brow sae white, 


eyes so 


Her haffet locks as brown's a berry ; 


cheek 


And aye they dimpl't wi' a smile, 




The rosy cheeks o' bonnie Mary. 




We lap and danced the lee-lang day, 


leapt, live-long 


Till piper lads were wae and weary, 


sorry 


But Charlie gat the spring to pay, 


got, music 


For kissin' Theniel's bonnie Mary. 


IE. 


COME BOAT ME O'ER TO CHARL 


Tune — O'er the Water to Charlie. 




Come boat me o'er, come row me o'er, 




Come boat me o'er to Charlie ; 




I'll gie John Ross another bawbee, 


halfpenny 


To boat me o'er to Charlie. 




We'll o'er the water and o'er the sea, 




We'll o'er the water to Charlie ; 




Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go, 




And live or die wi' Charlie. 




I loe weel my Charlie's name, 


love, well 


Tho' some there be abhor him ; 




But oh, to see auld George gaun hame, 


going home 


And Charlie's face before him ! 




I swear and vow by moon and stars, 




And sun that shines so early, 




If I had twenty thousand lives, 




I'd die as aft for Charlie. 


oft 



3 J* BUHLS' songs. 



ON A PLOUGHMAN. 

As I was a-wandering ae morning in spring, one 

I heard a young ploughman sae sweetly to sing ; so 
And as he was singing these words, he did say, 

There's nae life like the ploughman's in the month of sweetMay. no 

The lav'rock in the morning she'll rise frae her nest, lark, from 

And mount the air wi' the dew on her breast, 

And wi' the merry ploughman she'll whistle and sing, 

And at night she'll return to her nest back again. 



EVAN BANKS. 

Tune — Savouma Delish. 

Slow spreads the gloom my soul desires, 
The sun from India's shore retires : 
To Evan banks with template ray, 
Home of youth, ho leads the day. 

Oh 1 banks to me for ever dear ! 
Oh ! stream, whose murmurs still I hear « 
All, all my hopes of bliss reside 
Where Evan mingles with the Clyde. 

And she, in simple beauty drest, 
"Whose image lives within my breast ; 
"Who, trembling, heard my parting sigh, 
And long pursued me with her eye : 

Does she, with heart unchang'd as mine, 
Oft in the vocal bowers recline ? 
Or, where yon grot o'erhangs the tide, 
Muse while the Evan seeks the Clyde ? 

Ye lofty banks that Evan bound, 
Ye lavish woods that wave around, 
And o'er the stream your shadows throw 
"Which sweetly winds so far below ; 

What secret charm to mem'ry brings 
All that on Evan's border springs ! 
Sweet banks ! ye bloom by Mary's side : 
Blest stream ! she views thee haste to Clyde, 

Can all the wealth of India's coast 
Atone for years in absence lost I 
Return, ye moments of delight, 
With richer treasures bless my sight I 

Swift from this desert let me part, 

And fly to meet a kindred heart ! 

Nor more may aught my steps divide 

From that de^r stream which flows to Clyde I 



burns' songs. 


33S 


BONNIE PEG. 




As I came in by our gate end, 




As day was waxin' weary, 




wha came tripping down the street, 


who 


But bonnie Peg, my dearie ! 




Her air sae sweet, and shape complete. 


so 


Wi' nae proportion wanting, 


no 


The Queen of Love did never move 




Wi' motion mair enchanting. 


mora 


Wi' linked hands, we took the sands 




A-down yon winding river ; 




And, oh ! that hour and broomy bower, 




Can I forget it ever ? 


It* 


HERE'S HIS HEALTH IN WATE 


Tune — The Job of Journey-Work. 




Altho' my back be at the wa', 


wall 


And tho' he be the fautor ; 


faulty person 


Altho' my back be at the wa', 




Yet, here's his health in water ! 




! wae gae by his wanton sides, 


woe, go 


Sae brawlie he could flatter ; 


so nicely 


Till for his sake I'm slighted sair, 


sore 


And dree the kintra clatter. 


endure, country 


But tho' my back be at the wa', 




And tho' he be the fautor ; 




But tho' myjback be at the wa', 




Yet, here's his health in water. 




AH, CHLORIS. 




Tune — Major Graham. 




Ah, Ghloris, since it may na be, 


not 


That thou of love wilt hear ; 




If from the lover thou maun flee, 


must 


Yet let the friend be dear. 




Altho' I love my Chloris mair 




Than ever tongue could tell ; 




My passion I will ne'er declare, 




111 say I'll wish thee well : 




Tho' a* my daily care thou art, 




And a' my nightly dream, 




I'll hide the struggle in my heart. 


• 


And say it is esteem. 




— — — 





BURKS' SONGS. 



[The manuscript of this Song, In Burns' handwriting-, Is in the possession of Ml 
John Dick, bookseller, Ayr. By his kind permission we are enabled to give it here.] 

SONG, 

IN THE CHARACTER OF A RUINED FARMER. 

Tuxe— Go from my window, Love, do. 

The sun he is stink in the west, 
All creatures retired to rest, 
While here I sit all sore beset 

With sorrow, grief, and wo ; 
And it's O, fickle Fortune, O 1 

The prosperous man is asleep, 

Nor hears how the whirlwinds sweep ; 

But misery and I must watch 

The surly tempest blow : 
And it's O, fickle Fortune, O ! 

There lies the dear partner of my breast, 
Her cares for a moment at rest : 
Must I see thee, my youthful pride, 

Thus brought so very low ! 
And it's 0, fickle Fortune, O ! 

There lie my sweet babies in her arms, 
No anxious fear their little heart alarms 
But for their sake my heart doth ache, 
With many a bitter throe : 
And it's 0, fickle Fortune, O I 

I once was by Fortune carest, 
I once could relieve the distrest : 
Now, life's poor support hardly earned, 
My fate will scarce bestow * 
And it's 0, fickle Fortune, O ! 

No eomfort, no comfort I have ! 
How welcome to me were the grave 1 
But then my wife and children dear, 

whither would they go ? 
And it's 0, fickle Fortune, O I 

O whither, O whither shall I turn ! 
All friendless, forsaken, forlorn ! 
For in this world rest or peace 

1 never more shall knowj 
And it's 0, fickle Fortune, O ! 



LETTERS. 



TO ELLISON BEGBIE. 

About 1783. 
I verily believe, ray dear E., that the pure genuine feelings of 
love are as rare in the world as the pure genuine principles of 
virtue and piety. This, I hope, will account for the uncommon 
style of all my letters to you. By uncommon, I mean their being 
written in such a hasty manner, which, to tell you the truth, has 
made me often afraid lest you should take me for some zealous 
bigot, who conversed with his mistress as he would converse with 
his minister. I don't know how it is, my dear, for though, except 
your company, there is nothing on earth gives me so much plea- 
sure as writing to you, yet it never gives me those giddy raptures 
so much talked of among lovers- I have often thought that if a 
well-grounded affection be not really a part of virtue, 'tis some- 
thing extremely akin to it. "Whenever the thought of my E. 
warms my heart, every feeling of humanity, every principle of 
generosity, kindles in my breast, it extinguishes every dirty spark 
of malice and envy which are but too apt to infest me. 1 grasp 
every creature in the arms of universal benevolence, and equally 
participate in the pleasures of the happy, and sympathise with 
the miseries of the unfortunate. I assure you, my dear, I often 
look up to the Divine Disposer of events with an eye of gratitude 
for the blessing which I hope he intends to bestow on me in be- 
stowing you. I sincerely wish that he may bless my endeavours 
to make your life as comfortable and happy as possible, both in 
Sweetening the rougher parts of my natural temper, and bettering 
the unkindly circumstances of my fortune. This, my dear, is a 
passion, at least in my view, worthy of a man, and, I will add, 
worthy of a Christian. The sordid earthworm may profess love 
fco a woman's person, whilst in reality his affection is centered in 
her pocket ; and the slavish drudge may go a-wooing as he goes 
to the horse-market, to choose one who is stout and firm, and, as 
^e may say of an old horse, one who will be a good drudge, and 



838 BURNS' LETTERS. 



draw kindly. I disdain their dirty, puny ideas. I would be heartily 
out of humour with myself if I thought I were capable of having 
so poor a notion of the sex, which were designed to crown the 
pleasures of society. Poor fellows ! I don't envy them their hap- 
piness who have such notions. For my part, I propose quite other 
pleasures with my dear partner. R. B. 



n. 

TO THE SAME. 

My dear E. — I do not remember, in the course of your ac- 
quaintance and mine, ever to have heard your opinion on the or- 
dinary way of falling in love amongst people of our station in life. 
I do not mean the persons who proceed in the way of bargain, 
but those whose affection is really placed on the person. 

Though I be, as you know very well, but a very awkward lover 
myself, yet as I have some opportunities of observing the conduct 
of others who are much better skilled in the affair of courtship 
than I am, I often think it is owing to lucky chance more than to 
good management that there are not more unhappy marriages 
than usually are. 

It is natural for a young fellow to like the acquaintance of the 
females, and customary for him to keep them company when oc- 
casion serves : some one of them is more agreeable to him than 
the rest — there is something, he knows not what, pleases him, he 
knows not how, in her company. This I take to be what is called 
love with the greater part of us; and I must own, my dear E., 
it is a hard game such a one as you have to play when you meet 
with such a lover. You cannot refuse but he, is sincere, and yet 
though you use him ever so favourably, perhaps in a few months, 
or at farthest in a year or two, the same unaccountable fancy may 
make him as distractedly fond of another, whilst you are quite 
forgot. I am aware that perhaps the next time I have the plea- 
sure of seeing you, you may bid me take my own lesson home, 
ind tell me that the passion I have professed for you is perhaps 
one of those transient flashes I have been describing ; but I hope, 
my dear E., you will do me the justice to believe me, when I as- 
sure you that the love I have for you is founded on the sacred 
principles of virtue and honour, and by consequence, so long as 
you continue possessed of those amiable qualities which first in- 
spired my passion for you, so long must I continue to love you. 
Believe me, my dear, it is love like this alone which can render 
the marriage state happy. People may talk of flames and rap- 
tures as long as they please — and a warm fancy, with a flow of 
youthful spirits, may make them feel something like what they 
describe ; but sure I am, the nobler faculties of the mind, with 



BURNS' LETTERS. 33& 



kindred feelings of the heart, can only be the foundation Of friend- 
ship, and it has always been my opinion that the married life was 
only friendship in a more exalted degree. If you will be so good 
ivs to grant my wishes, and it should please Providence to spare 
us to the latest period of life, I can look forward and see that even 
then, though bent down with wrinkled age — even then, when all 
other worldly circumstances will be indifferent to me, I will re- 
gard my E. with the tenderest affection ; and for this plain rea- 
son, because she is still possessed of those noble qualities, improved 
to a much higher degree, which first inspired my affection for her. 

41 Oh happy state, when souls each other draw, 
When love is liberty, and nature law !" 

I know were I to speak in such a style to many a girl, who 
thinks herself possessed of no small share of sense, she would think 
It ridiculous ; but the language of the heart is, my dear E., the 
only courtship I shall ever use to you. 

When I look over what I have written, I am sensible it is vastly 
different from the ordinary style of courtship, but I shall make no 
apology — I know your good nature will excuse what your good 
Bense may see amiss. R. B. 



III. 
TO THE SAME. 

I have often thought it a peculiarly unlucky circumstance in 
love that though, in every other situation in life, telling the truth 
is not only the safest, but actually by far the easiest way of pro- 
ceeding, a lover is never under greater difficulty in acting, or 
more puzzled for expression, than when his passion is sincere, and 
his intentions are honourable. I do not think that it is very difficult 
for a person of ordinary capacity to talk of love and fondness 
which are not felt, and to make vows of constancy and fidelity 
which are never intended to be performed, if he be villain enough 
to practise such detestable conduct ; but to a man whose heart 
glows with the principles of integrity and truth, and who sincerely 
loves a woman of amiable person, uncommon refinement of senti- 
ment and purity of manners — to such a one, in such circumstances, 
I can assure you, my dear, from my own feelings at this present 
moment, courtship is a task indeed. There is such a number of 
foreboding fears and distrustful anxieties crowd into my mind 
when I am in your company, or when I sit down to write to you, 
that what to speak or what to write I am altogether at a loss. 

There is one rule which I have hitherto practised, and which I 
shall invariably keep with you, and that is, honestly to tell you 
the plain truth. There is something so mean and unmanly in 
the arts of dissimulation and falsehood, that I am surprised they 
ean be acted by any one in so noble, so generous a passion as 



340 BURNS' LETTERS. 



virtuous love. No, my dear E., I shall never endeavour to gain 
your favour by such detestable practices. If you will be so good 
and so generous as to admit me for your partner, your companion, 
your bosom friend through life, there is nothing on this side of 
eternity shall give me greater transport ; but I shall never think 
of purchasing your hand by any arts unworthy of a man, and, I 
will add, of a Christian. There is one thing, my dear, which I 
earnestly request of you, and it is this, that you would soon either 
put an end to my hopes by a peremptory refusal, or cure me of my 
fears by a generous consent. 

It would oblige me much if you would send me a line or two 
when convenient. I shall only add further, that if a behaviour 
regulated (though perhaps but very imperfectly) by the rules of 
honour and virtue, if a heart devoted to love and esteem you, and 
an earnest endeavour to promote your happiness — if these are 
qualities you would wish in a friend, in a husband, I hope you 
shall ever find them in your real friend and sincere lover, R. B. 



IV. 

TO THE SAME. 

I ought, in good manners, to have acknowledged the receipt of 
your letter before this time, but my heart was so shocked with 
the contents of it, that I can scarcely yet collect my thoughts so 
as to write you on the subject. I will not attempt to describe 
what I felt on receiving your letter. I read it over and over, 
again and again ; and though it was in the politest language of 
refusal, still it was peremptory : " you were sorry you could not 
make me a return, but you wish me" — what, without you, I never 
can obtain — " you wish me all kind of happiness." It would be 
weak and unmanly to say, that without you I never can be happy ; 
but sure I am, that sharing life with you would have given it a 
relish that, wanting you, I can never taste. 

your uncommon personal advantages, and your superior good 
sense, do not so much strike me ; these, possibly, may be met with 
in a few instances in others ; but that amiable goodness, that 
tender feminine softness, that. endearing sweetness of disposition, 
with all the charming offspring of a warm, feeling heart — these I 
never again expect to meet with, in such a degree, in this world. 
All these charming qualities, heightened by an education much 
beyond any thing I have ever met in any woman I ever dared to 
approach, have made an impression on my heart that I do not 
think the world can ever efface. My imagination has. fondly 
flattered myself with a wish, — I dare not say it ever reached a 
hope, — that possibly I might one day call you mine. I had formed 
the most delightful images, and my fancy fondly brooded over 
them ; but now I am wretched for the loss of what I really had 



BURNS' LETTERS. 341 



no right to expect. I must now think no more of you as a 
mistress ; still, I presume to ask to be admitted as a friend. As 
such, I wish to be allowed to wait on you ; and as I expect to re- 
move in a few days a little farther off, and you, I suppose, will 
soon leave this place, T wish to see or hear from you soon : and if 
an expression should perhaps escape me rather too warm for 
friendship, I hope you will pardon it in, my dear Miss — (pardon 
me the dear expression for once) * * * * R. B. 



V. 

TO HIS FATHER. 

Ibvixe, December 27, 1781 
Honoured Sir, — I have purposely delayed writing in the hope 
that I should have the pleasure of seeing you on New-Year's 
Day ; but work comes so hard upon us, that I do not choose to 
be ausent on that account, as well as for some other little reasons, 
which I shall tell you at meeting. My health is nearly the same 
as when you were here, ODly my sleep is a little sounder ; and, on 
the whole, I am rather better than otherwise, though I mend by 
very slow degrees. The weakness of my nerves has so debilitated 
my mind, that I dare neither review past events nor look forward 
jnto futurity : for the least anxiety or perturbation in my breast 
produces most unhappy effects on my whole frame. Sometimes, 
indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are a little lightened, 
I glimmer a little into futurity ; but my principal, and indeed my 
only pleasurable employment, is looking backwards and forwards 
in a moral and religious way. I am quite transported at the 
thought that ere long very soon — I shall bid an eternal adieu to 
all the pains and uneasinesses and disquietudes of this weary 
life, for I assure you I am heartily tired of it ; and if I do not 
very much deceive myself, I could contentedly and gladly re- 
sign it. 

u The soul, uneasy and confined at home, 
Rests and expatiates in a life to come. 5 ' 

It is for this reason I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, 
and 17th verses of the 7th chapter of Revelations than with any 
ten times a3 many verses in the whole Bible, and would not 
exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me for 
all that this world has to offer. As for this world, I despair of 
ever making a figure in it. I am not formed for the bustle of 
the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. I shall never again be 
capable of entering into such scenes. Indeed, I am altogether 
unconcerned at the thoughts of this life. I foresee that poverty 
and obscurity probably await me: I am in some measure pre- 
pared, and daily preparing to meet them. I have but just time 
and paper to return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of 



342 BURNS' LETTERS. 



rirtue and piety you have given me, which were too much 
neglected at the time of giving them ; but which, I hope, have 
been remembered ere it is yet too late. Present my dutiful 
respects to my mother, and my compliments to Mr and Mrs 
Muir ; and with wishing you a merry New-Year's-Day, I shall 
conclude. I am, honoured sir, your dutiful son. 

Robert Burns. 

P. S. — My meal is nearly out ;* but I am going to borrow till 
I get more. 



VI. 
TO MR JOHN MURDOCH, 

SCHOOLMASTER, STAPLES INN BUILDINGS, LONDON. 

Lochlea, 15th January 1783. 

Dear Sir, — As I have an opportunity of sending you a letter 
without putting you to that expense which any production of mine 
would but ill repay, I embrace it with pleasure to tell you that I 
have not forgotten, nor ever will forget, the many obligations I 
lie under to your kindness and friendship. 

I do not doubt, sir, but you will wish to know what has been 
the result of all the pains of an indulgent father and a masterly 
teacher, and I wish I could gratify your curiosity with such a 
recital as you would be pleased with ; but that is what I £in 
afraid will not be the case. I have, indeed, kept pretty clear of 
vicious habits, and in this respect I hope my conduct will not 
disgrace the education I have gotten ; but as a man of the world 
I am most miserably deficient. One would have thought that, 
bred as I have been under a father who has figured pretty well 
as un homines des affaires, I might have been what the world calls 
a pushing, active fellow ; but to tell you the truth, sir, there is 
hardly anything more my reverse. I seem to be one sent into 
the world to see and observe, and I very easily compound with 
the knave who tricks me of my money, if there be anything 
original about him, which shows me human nature in a different 
light from anything I have seen before. In short, the joy of my 
heart is to "study men, their manners, and their ways;" and for 
this darling subject I cheerfully sacrifice every other considera- 
tion. I am quite indolent about those great concerns that set 
the bustling busy sons of care agog ; and if I have to answer for 
the present hour, I am very easy with regard to anything fur- 
ther. Even the last, worst shift of the unfortunate and the 
wretchedf does not much terrify me : I know that even then 
my talent for what country folks call a sensible crack,J when 

* It was customary for small farmers, on sending their children to learn a trade, 
to supply them with oatmeal for their porridge and cake*, 
f Mendicancy 
4 Chat. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 843 



once it is sanctified by a hoary head, would procure me sj 
much esteem, that even then I would learn to be happy. How- 
ever, I am under no apprehensions about that ; for though in- 
dolent, yet so far as an extremely delicate constitution per- 
mits, I am not lazy, and in many things, especially in tavern 
matters, I am a strict economist — not, indeed for the sake of the 
money, but one of the principal parts in my composition is a kind 
of pride of stomach; and I scorn to fear the face of any man 
living : above everything, I abhor the idea of sneaking in a corner 
to avoid a dun — possibly some pitiful, sordid wretch, who in my 
heart I despise and detest. »Tis this, and this alone, that endears 
economy to me. In the matter of books, indeed, I am very pro- 
fuse. My favourite authors are of the sentimental kind — such as 
Shenstone, particularly his Elegies ; Thomson ; Man of Feeling 
— a book I prize next to the Bible ; Man of the World ; Sterne, 
especially his Sentimental Journey ,* Macpherson's Ossian, &c. ; 
these are the glorious models after which I endeavour to form my 
conduct ; and 'tis incongruous, 'tis absurd, to suppose, that the 
man whose mind glows with sentiments lighted up at their sacred 
flame — the man whose heart distends with benevolence to all 
the human race — he- " who can soar above this little scene of 
things " — can he descend to mind the paltry concerns about which 
the terrsefilial race fret, and fume, and vex themselves ? Oh how 
the glorious triumph swells my heart ! I forget that I am a poor 
insignificant fellow, unnoticed and unknown, stalking up and 
down fairs and markets when I happen to be in them, reading a 
page or two of mankind, and " catching the manners living as 
they rise," whilst the men of business jostle me on every side as 
an idle encumbrance in their way. But I daresay I have by this 
time tired your patience; so I shall conclude with begging you 
to give Mrs Murdoch — not my compliments, for that is a mere 
commonplace story, but my warmest, kindest wishes for her wel- 
fare, — and accept of the same for yourself, from, dear sir, yours, 

R. B. 

See (VI .*), p. 451. 

VII. 
TO MR BURNESS OF MOXTROSE. 

Lochlea, 17th February 1784. 

Dear Cousin — I would have returned you my thanks for your 
kind favour of the 13th of December sooner, had it not been that 
I waited to give you an account of that melancholy event which, 
for some time past, we have from day to day expected. 

On the 13th current I lost the best of fathers. Though, to be 
sure, we have had long warning of the impending stroke, still the 
feelings of nature claim their part, and I cannot recollect the 
tender endearments and parental lessons of the best of friends 



*4* burns' letters. 

and ablest of instructors, without reeling what perhaps the calmer 
dictates of reason would partly condemn. 

I hope my father's friends in your country will not let their 
connection in this place die with him. For my part, I shall ever 
with pleasure, with pride, acknowledge my connection with those 
who were allied by the ties of blood and friendship to a man 
whose memory I shall ever honour and revere. 

I expect, therefore, my dear sir, you will not neglect any oppor- 
tunity of letting me hear from you, which will very much oblige, 
my dear cousin, yours sincerely, R. B. 



VIII. 
TO MR JAMES BURNES, MONTROSE. 

Mossgiel, August 1784. 
We have been surprised with one of the most extraordinary 
phenomena in the moral world which I daresay has happened in 
the course of this half century. We have had a party of [the] 
Presbytery [of] Relief, as they call themselves, for some time in 
this country. A pretty thriving society of them has been in the 
burgh of Irvine for some years past, till, about two years ago, a 
Mrs Buchan from Glasgow came, and began to spread some fana- 
tical notions of religion among them, and in a short time made 
many converts ; and among others their preacher, Mr White, 
who, upon that account, has been suspended and formally deposed 
by his brethren. He continued, however, to preach in private to 
his party, and was supported, both he and their spiritual mother, 
as they affect to call old Buchan, by the contributions of the rest, 
several of whom were in good circumstances ; till, in spring last, 
the populace rose and mobbed Mrs Buchan, and put her out of 
the town ; on which all her followers voluntarily quitted the place 
likewise, and with such precipitation, that many of them never 
shut their doors behind them. One left a washing on the green, 
another a cow bellowing at the crib without food, or anybody to 
mind her ; and after several stages, they are fixed at present in 
the neighbourhood of Dumfries. Their tenets are a strange 
jumble of enthusiastic jargon ; among others, she pretends to give 
them the Holy Ghost by breathing on them, which she does with 
postures and practices that are scandalously indecent. They have 
likewise disposed of all their effects, and hold a community of 
goods, and live nearly an idle life, carrying on a great farce of 
pretended devoMon in barns and woods, where they lodge and Jie 
altogether, and hold likewise a community of women, as it is 
another of their tenets that they can commit no moral sin. I am 
personally acquainted with most of them, and I can assure you 
the above-mentioned are facts. 
• This, my dear sir, is one of the many instances of the folly of 



I URNS' LETTERS. 345 

leaving the guidance of sound reason and common sense in mat- 
ters of religion. 

Whenever we neglect or despise these sacred monitors, the 
whimsical notions of a perturbated brain are taken for the imme- 
diate influences of the Deity ; and the wildest fanaticism, and the 
most inconstant absurdities, will meet with abettors and converts. 
Nay, I have often thought that the more out-of-the-way and 
ridiculous the fancies are, if once they are sanctified under the 
sacred name of religion, the unhappy mistaken votaries are the 
more firmly glued to them. R. B. 



IX. 

TO MISS MARGARET &- 



1785. 

Madam, — Permit me to present you with the enclosed song 
(p. 218), as a small though grateful tribute for the honour of your 
acquaintance. I have, in these verses, attempted some faint 
gketches of your portrait in the unembellished simple manner of 
descriptive truth. Flattery I leave to your lovers, whose 
exaggerating fancies may make them imagine you still nearer 
perfection than you really are. 

Poets, madam, of all mankind, feel most forcibly the powers of 
beauty ; as, if they are really poets of Nature's making, their 
feelings must be finer, and their taste more delicate, than most oi 
the world. In the cheerful bloom of spring, or.the pensive mild- 
ness of autumn, the grandeur of summer, or the hoary majesty 
of winter, the poet feels a charm unknown to the rest of his 
species. Even the sight of a fine flower, or the company of a fine 
woman (by far the finest part of God's works below), have sensa- 
tions for the poetic heart that the herd of men are strangers to. 
On this last account, madam, I am, as in many other things, in- 
debted to Mr H.'s kindness in introducing me to you. Your 
lovers may view you with a wish, I look on you with pleasure : 
their hearts ; in your presence, may glow with desire, mine rises 
with admiration. 

That the arrows of misfortune, however they should, as incident 
to humanity, glance a slight wound, may never reach your heart — 
that the snares of vill.-ny may never beset you in the road of 
life — that innocence may hand you by the path of honour to 
the dwelling of peace — is the sincere wish of him. who has the 
honcur to be, &c, R. B. 



846 BURNS' LETTERS, 



TO MR JOHN RICHMOND, EDINBURGH. 

Mossgiel, February 17, 1786. 
My dear Sir, — I have not time at present to upbraid you for 
your silence and neglect ; I shall only say I received yours with 
great pleasure. I have enclosed you a piece of rhyming ware for 
your perusal. I have been very busy with the Muses since I saw 
you, and have composed, among several others, The Ordination, 
a poem on Mr M'Kinlay's being called to Kilmarnock ; Scotch 
Drink, a poem ; The Cotter's Saturday Night ; An Address to 
the Devil, &c. I have likewise completed my poem on the Dogs, 
but have not shown it to the world. My chief patron now is Mr 
Aiken in Ayr, who is pleased to express great approbation of my 
works. Be so good as send me Fergusson, by Connel, and I will 
remit you the money. I have no news to acquaint you with about 
Mauchline ; they are just going on in the old way. I have some 
very important news with respect to myself, not the most agree- 
able — news that I am sure you cannot guess, but I shall give you 
the particulars another time. I am extremely happy with Smith ; 
he is the only friend I have now in Mauchline. I can scarcely 
forgive your long neglect of me, and I beg you will let me hear 
from you regularly by Connel. If you would act your part as 
a friend, I am sure neither good nor bad fortune should strange 
or alter me. Excuse haste, as I got yours but yesterday. I am, 
my dear sir, yours, Robert Burness. 



XI. 

TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ., AYR. 

April 178G? 
Honoured Sir, — My proposals came to hand last night, and, 
knowing that you would wish to have it in your power to do me a 
service as early as anybody, I enclose you half a sheet of them. 
I must consult you, first opportunity, on the propriety of sending 
my quondam friend, Mr Aiken, a copy. If he is now reconciled 
to my character as an honest man, I would do it with all my 
soul; but I would not be beholden to the noblest being ever God 
created, if he imagined me to be a rascal. Apropos, old Mr 
Armour prevailed with him to mutilate that unlucky paper 
yesterday. Would you believe it ?— though I had not a hope, nor 
even a wish, to make her mine after her conduct, yet, when he 
told me the names were all out of the paper, my heart died within 
me, and he cut my veins with the news. * * * R. B. 



BURNS LETTERS. 



XII. 

TO MR M'WHINNIE, WRITER, AYR. 

Mossgiel, 17th April 178£ 
It is injuring some hearts, those hearts that elegantly bear the 
impression of the good Creator, to say to them you give them the 
trouble of obliging a friend ; for this reason, I only tell you that 
I gratify my own feelings in requesting your friendly offices with 
rospect to the enclosed (a prospectus of the Poems), because ^ 
know it will gratify yours to assist me in it to the utmost of your 
power. 

I have sent you four copies, as I have no less than eight dozen, 
which is a great deal more than I shall ever need. 

Be sure to remember a poor poet militant in your prayers. He 
looks forward with fear and trembling to that, to him, important 
moment which stamps the die with — with — with, perhaps, the 
eternal disgrace of, my dear sir, your humble, afflicted, tormented', 

Robert Burns. 



XIII. 
TO MR JOHN KENNEDY. 

Mossgiel, 20th April 1786. 

Sir, — By some neglect in Mr Hamilton, I did not hear of your 
kind request for a subscription paper till this day. I will not at- 
tempt any acknowledgment for this, nor the manner in which I 
see your name in Mr Hamilton's subscription list. Allow me 
only to say, sir, I feel the weight of the debt. 

I have here likewise enclosed a small piece, the very latest of 
my productions. I am a good deal pleased with some sentiments 
myself, as they are just the native querulous feelings of a heart 
which, as the elegantly melting Gray says, • melancholy has 
marked for her own.* 

Our race comes on apace — that much expected scene of revelry 
and mirth ; but to me it brings no joy equal to that meeting with 
which you last nattered the expectation of, sir, your indebted 
humble servant, R. B. 



XIV. 

TO MR DAVID BRICE. 

Mossgiel, June 12, 1786. 
Dear Brice, — I received your message by G-. Paterson, and as 
I am not very throng [busy] at present, I just write to let you 
know that there is such a worthless, rhyming reprobate as your 



8 I s burns' letters. 



humble servant still in the land of the living, though 1 can 
scarcely say in the place of hope. I have no news to tell you 
that will give me any pleasure to mention, or you to hear. 

Poor, ill-advised, ungrateful Armour came home on Friday 
last. You have heard all the particulars of that affair, and a 
black affair it is. What she thinks of her conduct now I don't 
know : one thing I do know — she has made me completely miser- 
able. Never man loved, or rather adored, a woman more than I 
did her ; and to confess a truth between you and me, I do still 
love her to distraction after all, though I won't tell her so if I were 
to see her, which I don't want to do. My poor dear unfortunate 
Jean 1 how happy have I been in thy arms ! It is not the losing 
her that makes me so unhappy, but for her sake I feel most 
severely. I foresee she is in the road to, I am afraid, eternal 
ruin. 

May Almighty God forgive her ingratitude and perjury to me, 
as I from my very soul forgive her ; and may His grace be with 
her and bless her in all her future life ! I can have no nearer idea 
of the place of eternal punishment than what I have felt in my own 
breast on her account. I have tried often to forget her ; I have 
run into all kinds of dissipation and riots, mason-meeting?, 
drinking-matches, and other mischief, to drive her out of my 
head; but all in vain. And now for a grand cure : the ship is on 
her way home that is to take me out to Jamaica ; and then, fare- 
well dear old Scotland ! and farewell, dear ungrateful Jean ! for 
never, never will I see you more. 

You will have heard that I am going to commence poet in 
print ; and to-morrow my works go to the press. I expect it will 
be a volume of about 200 pages— it is just the last foolish action 
I intend to do, and then turn a wise man as fast as possible. 
Believe me to be, dear Brice. your friend and well-wisher, 

R. B. 



XV. 
TO JOHN RICHMOND, EDINBURGH. 

Mossgiel, 9th July 1786. 

"With the sine crest grief I read your letter. You are truly a 
son of misfortune. I shall be extremely anxious to hear from you 
how your health goes on — if it is anyway re-establishing, or if 
Leith promises well — in short, how you feel in the inner man. 

I have waited on Armour since her return home ; not from the 
least view of reconciliation, but merely to ask for her health, and, 
to you I will confess it, from a foolish hankering fondness, very 
Ul-placed indeed. The mother forbade me the house, nor did 



BURNS' LETTERS. 340 



Jean show that penitence that might have been expected. How- 
ever, the priest, I am informed, will give me a certificate as a 
single man, if I comply with the rules of the church, which for 
that very reason I intend to do. 

I am going to put on sackcloth and ashes this day. I am in- 
dulged so far as to appear in my own seat. Peccavi, -pater ,• 
miserere me. My book will be ready in a fortnight. If you have 
any subscribers, return them by Connel. The Lord stand with 
tie righteous — Amen, amen 1 R. B. 



XVI. 
TO MR DAVID BRICE, 

SHOEMAKER, GLASGOW. 

Mossgiel, Yith July 1786. 
I have been so throng [busy] printing my Poems, that I could 
scarcely find as much time as to write' to you. Poor foolish 
Armour is come back again to Mauchline, and I went to call for 
her, and her mother forbade me the house ; nor did she herself 
express much sorrow for what she has done. I have already ap- 
peared publicly in church, and was indulged in the liberty of 
standing in my own seat. I do this to get a certificate as a 
bachelor, which Mr Auld has promised me. I am now fixed to ga 
for the West Indies in October. Jean and her friends insisted 
much that she should stand along with me in the kirk ; but the 
minister would not allow it, which bred a great trouble, I assure 
you, and I am blamed as the cause of it, though I am sure I am 
innocent ; but I am very much pleased, for all that, not to have 
had her company. I have no news to tell you that I remember, 
I am really happy to hear of your welfare, and that you are so 
well in Glasgow. I must certainly see you before I lea^e the 
country. I shall expect to hear from you soon, and am, dear 
Brice, yours, R. B. 



XVII. 

TO MR JOHN RICHMOND. 

Old Rojie Forest, 30th July 178G. 
My Dear Richmond, — My hour is now come — you and I will 
never meet in Britain more. I have orders, within three weeks 
pt farthest, to repair aboard the Nancy, Captain Smith, from 
Clyde to Jamaica, and to call at Antigua. This, except to our 
friend Smith, whom God long preserve, is a secret about Mauch- 
line. Would you believe it? Armour has got a warrant to thro^? 



3o0 BURNS' LETTERS. 



me in jail till I find security for an enormous sum. This they 
keep an entire secret, but I got it by a channel they little dream 
of; and I am wandering from one friend's house to another, and, 
like a true son of the gospel, " have no where to lay my head." 
I know you will pour an execration on her head, but spare the 
poor, ill-advised girl, for my sake. * * * I write in a moment 
of rage, reflecting on my miserable situation — exiled, abandoned, 
forlorn. I can write no more : "let me hear from you by the 
return of coach. I will write you ere I go. I am, dear sir, yours, 
here and hereafter, R. B. 



XVIII. 

TO MONS. JAMES SMITH, MAUOHLINE. 

Mtnday Morning, Mossgiel. 

My Dear Sir, — I went to Dr Douglas yesterday, fully resolved 
to take the opportunity of Captain Smith ; but I found the Doctor 
with a Mr and Mrs AYhite, both Jamaicans, and they have de- 
ranged my plans altogether. They assure him that to send me 
from Savannah la Mar to Port Antonio will cost my master, 
Charles Douglas, upwards of fifty pounds, besides running the 
risk of throwing myself into a pleuritic fever, in consequence of 
hard travelling in the sun. On these accounts he refuses sending 
me with Smith ; but a vessel sails from Greenock the 1st of Sep- 
tember, right for the place of my destination. The captain of 
her is an intimate friend of Mr Gavin Hamilton's, and as good a 
fellow as heart could wish : with him I am destined to go. Where 
I shall shelter I know not, but I hope to weather the storm. * * * 

On Thursday morning, if you can muster a3 much self-denial 
as to be out of bed about seven o'clock, I shall see you as I ride 
through to Cumnock. After all, Heaven bless the sex ! I feel 
there is still happiness for me among them : — 

Oh, woman, lovely woman ! Heaven designed you 
To temper man !— we had been brutes without you I 

R. B, 



XIX. 

TO MR JOHN KENNEDY. 

Kilmarnock, August 1786. 
My Dear Sir, — Your truly facetious epistle of the 3d instant 
gave me much entertainment. I was only sorry I had not the 
pleasure of seeing you as I passed your way, but we shall bring 
up all our leeway on Wednesday the 16th current, when I hope 
to have it in my power to call on you, and take a kind, very pro- 
bably a last adieu, before I go for Jamaica ; and I expect orders 
to repair to Greenock every day. I have at last made my public 



BURNS' LETTERS. 351 



appearance, and am solemnly inaugurated into the numerous 
class. Could I have got a carrier, you should have had a score 
of vouchers for my authorship ; but, now you have them, let them 
speak for themselves.- 

Farewell, dear friend ! may guid-luck hit you, 
And 'mang her favourites admit you, 
If e'er Detraction shore to smit you, threaten 

May nane believe him. 



R,B. 



XX. 

TO MR BURNES,' MONTROSE. 

Mossgiel, September 26, 1786. 
My Dear Sir,— I this moment receive yours — receive it with 
the honest hospitable warmth of a friend's welcome. Whatever 
comes from you wakens always up the better blood about my heart, 
which your kind little recollections of my parental friends carries 
as far as it will go. J Tis there that man is blest ! 'Tis there, my 
friend, man feels a consciousness of something within him above 
the trodden clod ! The grateful reverence to the hoary (earthly) 
author of his being — the burning glow when he clasps the woman 
of his soul to his bosom — the tender yearnings of heart for the 
little angels to whom he has given existence — these Nature has 
poured in milky streams about the human heart; and the man 

. who never rouses them to action, by the inspiring influences of 
their proper objects, loses by far the most pleasurable part of his 
existence. 

■ My departure is uncertain, but I do not think it will be till 
after harvest. I will be on very short allowance of time indeed, 
if I do not comply with your friendly invitation. "When it will 

i be I don't know, but if I can make my wish good, I will endea- 
vour to drop you a line some time before. My best compliments 
to Mrs — : — ; I should [be] equally mortified should I drop in 
when she is abroad ; but of that I suppose there is little chance. 
What I have wrote Heaven knows ; I have not time to review 

• it: so accept of it in the beaten way of friendship. With the 
ordinary phrase— perhaps rather more than the ordinary sincerity 
— I am, dear sir, ever yours, m R. B. 



XXI. 
TO MRS STEWART OF STAIR. 

[August?] 1786. 
Madam, — The hurry of my preparations for going abroad has 
hindered me from performing my promise so soon as I intended. 



burns' letters. 



1 have lierc sent you a parcel of songs, &c., which never made 
their appearance, except to a friend or two at most. Perhaps 
some of them may be no great entertainment to you, but of that 
I am far from being an adequate judge. The song to the tune 
of Ettrick Banks [The Bonnie Lass of Ballochmyle, p. 223] you 
will easily see the impropriety of exposing much, even in manu- 
script. I think myself it has some merit, both as a tolerable de- 
scription of one of nature's sweetest scenes, a July evening, and 
one of the finest pieces of Nature's workmanship, the finest, indeed, 
we know anything of — an amiable, beautiful young woman (Miss 
Alexander) ; but I have no common friend to procure me that per- 
mission, without which I would not dare to spread the copy. 

I am quite aware, madam, what task the world would assign 
me in this letter. The obscure bard, when any of the great con- 
descend to take notice of him, should heap the altar with the 
incense of flattery. Their high ancestry, their own great and 
god-like qualities and actions, should be recounted with the most 
exaggerated description. This, madam, is a task for which T am 
altogether unfit. Besides a certain disqualifying pride of heart, 
I know nothing of your connections in life, and have no access to 
where your real character is to be found — the company of your 
compeers ; and more, I am afraid that even the most refined 
adulation is by no means the road to your good opinion. 

One feature of your character I shall ever with grateful plea- 
sure remember — the reception I got when I had the honour of 
waiting on you at Stair. I am little acquainted with politeness, 
but I know a good deal of benevolence of temper and goodness of 
heart. Surely did those in exalted stations know how happy they 
could make some classes of their inferiors by condescension and 
affability, they would never stand so high, measuring out with 
every look the height of their elevation, but condescend as sweetly 
as did Mrs Stewart of Stair. R. B. 



XXII. 

TO MR ROBERT AIKEN. 

Sir, — I was with Wilson 'my printer t'other day, and settled 
all our bygone matters between us. After I had paid all de- 
mands, I made him the offer of the second edition, on the hazard 
of being paid out of the first and readiest, which he declines. By 
his account, the paper of 1000 copies would cost about twenty- 
seven pounds, and the printing about fifteen or sixteen : he offers 
to agree to this for the printing if I will advance for the paper, 
but this, you know, is out of my power ; so farewell hopes of a 
second edition till I grow richer! an epocha which I think will 
arrive at the payment of the British national debt. 



BUK2\S' LETTERS. 308 



There is scarcely anything hurts ine so much in being dis- 
appointed of my second edition, as not having it in my power to 
show my gratitude to Mr Ballantine, by publishing my poem ol 
Tlie Brigs of Ayr, I would detest myself as a wretch if I thought 
[ were capable in a very long life of forgetting the honest, warm, 
and tender delicacy with which he enters into ray interests. I am 
sometimes pleased with myself in my grateful sensations ; but I 
believe, on the whole, I have very little merit in it, as my grati- 
tude is not a virtue, the consequence of reflection, but sheerly the 
Instinctive emotion of my heart, too inattentive to allow worldly 
maxims and views to settle into selfish habits. 

I have been feeling all the various rotations and movements 
within respecting the excise. There are many things plead 
strongly against it ; the uncertainty of getting soon into business 
the consequences of my follies, which may perhaps make it ini 
practicable for me to stay at home ; and, besides, I have for souk 
time been pining under secret wretchedness, from causes which 
you pretty well know — the pang of disappointment, the sting oi 
pride, with some wandering stabs of remorse, which never fail to 
settle on my vitals like vultures, when attention is not called away 
by the calls of society or the vagaries of the Muse. Even in the 
hour of social mirth, my gaiety is the madness of an intoxicated 
criminal under the hands of the executioner. All these reasons 
urge me to go abroad, and to all these reasons I have only one 
answer — the feelings of a father. This, in the present mood I am 
In, overbalances everything that can be laid in the scale against it. 

You may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy, but it is a 
sentiment which strikes home to my very soul ,* though sceptical 
in some points of our current belief, yet I think I have every evi- 
dence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourne of our 
present existence ; if so, then how should I, in the presence oi 
that tremendous Being, the Author of existence, — how should I 
meet the reproaches of those who stand to me in the dear relation 
of children, whom I deserted in the smiling innoeency of helpless 
infancy ? Oh thou great unknown Power ? — thou Almighty God ! 
who has lighted up reason in my breast, and- blessed me with im- 
mortality ! — I have frequently wandered from that order and 
regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet Thou hast 
never left me nor forsaken me*! 

Since I wrote the foregoing sheet, I have seen something of the 
etorra of mischief thickening over my folly-devoted head. Should 
you, my friends, my benefactors, be successful in your applica- 
tions for me, perhaps it may not be in my power in that way to 
reap the fruit of your friendly efforts. What I have w T ritten m 
the preceding pages is the settled tenor of my present resolution ; 
but should inimical circumstances forbid me closing with youi 
kind offer, or enjoying it only threaten to entail further misery 



154 BURNS' LETTERS. 



To tell the truth, I have little reason for complaint, as tha 
world, in general, has been kind to me fully up to my deserts. 1 
Was, for some time past, fast getting into the pining, distrustful 
snarl of the misanthrope. I saw myself alone, unfit for the strag- 
gle of life, shrinking at every rising cloud in the chance-directed 
atmosphere of fortune, while, all defenceless, I looked about in 
vain for a cover. It never occurred to me, at least never with the 
force it deserved, that this world is a busy scene, and man a crea- 
ture destined for a progressive struggle ; and that however 1 
might possess a warm heart and inoffensive manners (which last, 
by the by, was rather more than I could well boast), still, more 
than these passive qualities, there was something to be done. 
When all my schoolfellows and youthful compeers (those mis- 
guided few excepted who joined, to use a Gentoo phrase, the 
" hallachores" of the human race) were striking off with eager 
hope and earnest intent in some one or other of the many paths 
of busy life, I " was standing idle in the market-place," or only 
left the chace of the butterfly from flower to flower to hunt fancy 
from whim to whim. 

You see, sir, that if to know one's errors were a probability of 
mending them, I stand a fair chance ; but, according to the 
reverend Westminster divines, though conviction must precede 
conversion, it is very far from always implying it. R. B. 



XXIII. 
TO DR MACKENZIE, MAUCHLINE. 

[Enclosing him verses on dining with Lord Daer.] 

Wednesday moiming, [October 25?] 
Dear Sir, — I never spent an afternoon among great folks with 
half that pleasure as when, in company with you, I had the 
honour of paying my devoirs to that plain, honest, worthy man 
the professor [Dugald Stewart]. I would be delighted to see him 
perform acts of kindness and friendship, though I were not the 
object ; he does it with such a grace. I think his character, 
divided into ten parts, stands thus — four parts Socrates — four 
parts Nathaniel — and two parts Shakspeare's Brutus. 

The foregoing verses (p. 105) were really extempore, but a little 
corrected since. They may entertain you a little, with the help 
of that partiality with which you are so good as to favour the 
performances of, dear sir, your very humble servant, R. B. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 354 



XXIV. 
TO MRS DUNLOP OF DUNLOP. 
Madam,— I am truly sorry I was not at home yesterday, when 
I was so much honoured with your order for my copies, and in- 
comparably more by the handsome compliments you are pleased 
to pay my poetic abilities. I am fully persuaded there is not any 
class of mankind so feelingly alive to the titillations of applause 
as the sons of Parnassus : nor is it easy to conceive how the heart 
of the poor bard dances with rapture, when those whose character 
in life gives them a right to be polite judges, honour him with 
their approbation. Had you been thoroughly acquainted with 
me, madam, you could not have touched my darling heart-chord 
more sweetly than by noticing my attempts to celebrate your illus= 
trious ancestor, the saviour of his country. 

Great patriot hero ! ill-requited, chief! 

The first book I met with in my earlier years which I perused 
with pleasure was TheLife of Hannibal; the next was The History 'c j 
Sir William Wallace ; for several of my earlier years I had few other 
authors; and many a solitary hour have I stole out, after the labori- 
ous vocations of the day, to shed a tear over their glorious but unfor- 
tunate stories. In those boyish days Iremember in particular being 
struck with that part of Wallace's story where these lines occur : — 

" Syne to the Leglen Wood, when it was late. 
To make a silent and a safe retreat." 

I chose a fine summer Sunday, the only day my line of life allow- 
ed, and walked half-a-dozen of miles to pay my respects to the Leg- 
len Wood, with as much devout enthusiasm as ever pilgrim did to 
Loretto ; and as I explored every den and dell where I could sup- 
pose my heroic countryman to have lodged, I recollect (for even 
then I was a rhymer) that my heart glowed with a wish to be able 
to make a song on him in some measure equal to his merits. R. ti. 



XXV, 
TO MR ARCHIBALD LAWRIE. 

Mossgiel, November 13^, 1786. 
Dear Sir, — I have along with this sent two volumes of Ossian, 
with the remaining volume of the songs.* Ossian I am not in 

* Mrs Lawrie had rebuked Burns for some remarks he had made. When tLc 
tooks were opened, a slip of paper containing the following lines dropped out j — 
Rusticity's ungainly form 

May cloud the highest mind; 
But when the heart is nobly warns) 

The good excuse will find. 
Propriety's cold cautious rules 

Warm fervour may o'erlook ; 
But spare poor Sensibility 

The ungentle, harsh »cbuko= 



85G BURNS' LETTERS. 



*uch a hurry about ; but I wish the songs, with the volume of the 
Scotch poets, as soon as they can conveniently be despatched. If 
they are left at Mr Wilson the bookseller's shop in Kilmarnock, 
they will easily reach me. 

My most respectful compliments to Mr and Mrs Lawrie ; and a 
poet's warmest wishes for their happiness to the young ladies, par- 
ticularly the fair musician, whom I think much better qualified 
than ever David was, or could oe, to charm an evil spirit out of 
Sau^ 

Indeed it needs not the feelings of a poet to be interested in the 
welfare of one of the sweetest scenes of domestic peace and 
kindred love that ever I saw; as I think the peaceful unity of St 
Margaret's Hill can only be excelled by the harmonious concord 
of the Apocalyptic Zion. R. B. 



XXVI. 



TO MISS ALEXANDER OF BALLOCHMYLE. 

Mossgiel, 18th Nov. 1786. 

Madam, — Poets are such outre beings, so much the children of 
wayward fancy and capricious whim, that I believe the world 
generally allows them a larger latitude in the laws of propriety 
than the sober sons of judgment and prudence. I mention this 
as an apology for the liberties that a nameless stranger has 
taken with you in the enclosed poem, which he begs leave to 
present you with. Whether it has poetical merit anyway worthy 
of the theme, I am not the proper judge ; but it is the best my 
abilities can produce ; and, what to a good heart will perhaps be 
a superior grace, it is equally sincere as fervent. 

The scenery was nearly taken from real life, though I daresay, 
madam, you do not recollect it, as I believe you scarcely noticed 
the poetic reveur as he wandered by you. I had roved out as 
chance directed, in the favourite haunts of my Muse, on the banks 
of the Ayr, to view Nature in all the gaiety of the vernal year. The 
evening sun was flaming over the distant western hills; not a 
breath stirred the crimson opening blossom, or the verdant 
spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for a, poetic heart. I 
listened to the feathered warblers, pouring their harmony on 
every hand, with a congenial kindred regard, and frequently 
turned out of my path lest I should disturb their little songs, or 
frighten them to another station. Surely, said I to myself, he 
must be a wretch indeed who, regardless of your harmonious 
endeavour to please him, can eye your elusive flights to discover 
your secret recesses, and to rob you of all the property Nature 
gives you—your dearest comforts, your helpless nestlings. Even 



BURNS' LETTERS. 357 

the hoary hawthorn twig that shot across the way, what heart at 
such a time but must have been interested in its welfare, and 
wished it preserved from the rudely-browsing cattle, or the wither- 
ing eastern blast? Such was the scene, and such the hour, when, 
in a corner of my prospect, I spied one of the fairest pieces of 
Nature's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape or 
met a poet's eye — those visionary bards excepted who hold com- 
merce with aerial beings ! Had Calumny and Yillany taken my 
walk, they had at that moment sworn eternal peace with such 
an object. 

AVhat an hour of inspiration for a poet ! It would have raised 
plain dull historic prose into metaphor and measure ! 

The enclosed song was the work of my return home ; and per 
haps it but poorly answers what might have been expected from 
such a scene. * * * I have the honour to be, madam, your 
most obedient and very humble servant, R. B. 



XXVII. 
TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ., MAUCHLLNE. 

Edinburgh, Dec. 7th, 1786. 

Honoured Sir, — I hare paid every attention to your com- 
mands, but can only say, what perhaps you will have heard be- 
fore this reach you, that Muirkirklands were bought by a John 
Gordon, "VV.S., but for whom I know not; Mauchlands, Haugh-Mill, 
&c, by a Frederick Fotheringham, supposed to be for Ballochmyle 
Laird ; and Adam-Hill and Shawood were bought for Oswald's 
folks. This is so imperfect an account, and will be so late ere it 
reach you, that were it not to discharge my conscience, I would 
not trouble you with it ; but after all my diligence, I could make 
it no sooner nor better. 

For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of becoming as emi- 
nent as Thomas & Kempis or John Bunyan ; and you may expect I 
henceforth to see my birthday inserted among the wonderful events j 
in the Poor Robin's and Aberdeen Almanacs, along with the j 
Black Monday and the battle of Bothwell-Bridge. My Lord ! 
Glencairn and the Dean of Faculty, Mr H. Erskine, have taken j 
me under their wing ; and by all probability I shall soon be the j 
tenth worthy and the eighth wise man of the world. Through J 
my Lord's influence, it is inserted in the records of the Caledonian j 
Hunt that they universally, one and all, subscribe for the second ; , 
edition. My subscription bills come out to-morrow, and you j 
shall have some of them next post. I have met in Mr Dalrymple 
of Orangefield what Soloman emphatically calls " a friend that 
sticketh closer than a brother." The warmth with which he in« 



853 BURNS* LETTERS. 



terests himself in my affairs is of the same enthusiastic kind 
which you, Mr Aiken, and the few patrons that took notice oi 
my earlier poetic days, showed for the poor unlucky devil of a 
poet. 

I always remember Mrs Hamilton and Miss Kennedy in my 
poetic prayers, but you both in prose and verse. 

May cauld ne'er catch you but a hap, without, coat 
Nor hunger but in Plenty's lap ! 

Amen ! R. B. 



XXVIII. 
TO JAMES DALRYMPLE, ESQ., OF ORANGEFIELD. 

December 10, 1786 ? 

Dear Sir, — I suppose the devil is so elated with his success 
with you, that he is determined by a coup de main to complete 
his purposes on you all at once, in making you a .poet. I broke 
open the letter you sent me— hummed over the rhymes — and as 
I saw they were extempore, said to myself they were very well ; 
but when I saw at the bottom a name that I shall ever value 
with grateful respect, " I gapit wide, but naething spak." I wa3 
nearly as much struck as the friends of Job, of affliction-bearing 
memory, when they sat down with him seven days and seven 
nights, and spake not a word. 

I am naturally of a superstitious cast ; and as soon as my 
wonder-scared imagination regained its consciousness, and re- 
sumed its functions, I cast about what this mania of yours might 
portend. My foreboding ideas had the wide stretch of possi- 
bility; and several events, great in their magnitude, and import- 
ant in their consequences, occurred to my fancy. The downfall 
of the conclave, or the crushing of the cork rumps — a ducal coro- 
net to Lord George Gordon, and the Protestant interest or St 
Peter's keys to * * * *. 

You want to know how I come on. I am just in statu quo, or, 
not to insult a gentleman with my Latin, in " auld use and wont.". 
The noble Earl of Glencairn took me by the hand to-day, and 
interested himself in my concerns, with a goodness like that 
benevolent being whose image he so richly bears. He is a 
stronger proof of the immortality of the soul than any that 
philosophy ever produced. A mind like his can never die. Let 
the worshipful squire H. L., or the Reverend Mass J. M., go into 
their primitive nothing. At best, they are but ill-digested lumps 
of chaos — only, one of them strongly tinged with bituminous par- 
ticles and sulphureous effluvia. But my noble patron, eternal as 
the heroic swell of magnanimity, and the generous throb of 



BURNS LETTERS. 



benevolence, shall look on with princely eye at '* the war of ele- 
ments, the wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds." R. B. 



XXIX. 

TO JOHN BALLANTINE, ESQ., BANKER, AYR. 
Edinburgh, loih December 1786. 

My honoured Friend, — I would not write you till I could 
have it in my power to give you some account of myself and my 
matters, which, by the by, is often no easy task. I arrived here 
on Tuesday was se'nnight, and have suffered ever since I came 
to town with a miserable headache and stomach complaint, but 
am now a good deal better. I have found a worthy warm friend 
in Mr Dalrymple of Orangefield, who introduced me to Lord 
Glencairn, a man whose worth and brotherly kindness to me I 
shall remember when time shall be no more. By his interest it 
is passed in the " Caledonian Hunt," and entered in their books, 
that they are to take each a copy of the second edition, for which 
they are to pay one guinea. I have been introduced to a good 
many of the noblesse, but my avowed patrons and patronesses are, 
the Duchess of Gordon — the Countess of Glencairn, with my 
Lord and Lady Betty* — the Dean of Faculty— Sir John White- 
foord. I have likewise warm friends among the literati ; Profes- 
sors Stewart, Blair, and Mr Mackenzie, the " Man of Feeling.''" 
An unknown hand left ten guineas for the Ayrshire bard with 
Mr Sibbald, which I got. I since have discovered my generous 
unknown friend to be Patrick Miller, Esq., brother to the Justice- 
Clerk ; and drank a glass of claret with him by invitation at his 
own house yesternight. I am nearly agreed with Creech to print 
my book, and I suppose I will begin on Monday. I will send a 
subscription bill or two next post, when I intend writing my first 
kind patron, Mr Aiken. I saw his son to-day, and he is very well. 

Dugald Stewart* and some of my learned friends, put me in 
the periodical paper called the Lounger, a copy of which I here 
enclose you. I was, sir, when I was first honoured with your 
notice, too obscure ; now I tremble lest I should, be ruined by 
being dragged too suddenly into the glare of polite and learned 
observation. 

I shall certainly, my ever-honoured patron, write you an ac- 
count of my every step ; and better health and more spirits may 
enable me to make it something better than this stupid matter- 
of-fact epistle. I have the honour to be, good sir, your ever 
grateful, humble servant, R. B. 

If any of my friends write me, my direction is, care of Mr 
Creech, bookseller. 

* Lady Betty Cunningham, an unmarried sister of the Earl. 



360 BURNS' LETTERS. 



XXX. 

TO MR WILLIAM CHALMERS, WRITER, AYR. 

Edinburgh, December 27, 1786. 

My dear Friend,— I confess I have sinned the sin for which 
there is hardly any forgiveness— ingratitude to friendship— in not 
writing you sooner ; but of all men living, I had intended to have 
sent you an entertaining letter ; and by all the plodding, stupid 
powers, that in nodding, conceited majesty preside over the dull 
routine of business — a heavily solemn oath this ! — I am and have 
been, ever since I came to Edinburgh, as unfit to write a letter 
of humour as to write a commentary on the Revelation of St John 
the Divine, who was banished to the Isle of Patmos by the cruel 
and bloody Domitian, son to Vespasian, and brother to Titus, both 
emperors of Rome, and who was himself an emperor, and raised 
the second or third persecution, I forgot which, against the Chris- 
tians, and after throwing the said Apostle John, brother to the 
Apostle James, commonly called James the Greater, to distinguish 
him from another James, who was on some account or other 
known by the name of James the Less — after throwing him into 
a caldron of boiling oil, from which he was miraculously pre- 
served, he banished the poor son of Zebedee to a desert island in 
the Archipelago, where he was gifted with the second sight, and 
saw as many wild beasts as I have seen since I came to Edin- 
burgh ; which, a circumstance not very uncommon in story-telling, 
brings me back to where I set out. 

To make you some amends for what, before you reach this para- 
graph, you will have suffered, I enclose you two poems I have 
carded and spun since I passed Glenbuck. 

One blank in the Address to Edinburgh—" Fair B ," is hea- 
venly Miss Burnet, daughter to Lord Monboddo, at whose houso 
1 have had the honour to be more than once. There has not been 
anything nearly like her in all the combinations of beauty, grace 
and goodness the great Creator has formed, since Milton's Eve on 
the first day of her existence. 

My direction is, care of Andrew Bruce, merchant, Bridge 
Screet. R. B, 



XXXI. 

TO THE EARL OF EGLLNTOUN. 

[Edinburgh, January 11th, 1787.] 

My Lord, — As I have but slender pretensions to philosophy, I 

cannot rise to the exalted ideas of a citizen of the world, but have 

all those national prejudices which I believe glow peculiarly 

ttrong in the breast of a Scotchman. There is scarcely anything 



burns' letters. 861 



to which I am so feelingly alive as the honour and welfare of my 
country ; and as a poet, I have no higher enjoyment than singing 
her sons and daughters. Fate had cast my station in the veriest 
shades of life ; but never did a heart pant more ardently than 
mine to be distinguished, though, till very lately, I looked in vain 
on every side for a ray of light. It is easy, then, to guess how 
much I was gratified. with the countenance and approbation oi 
one of my country'3 most illustrious sons, when Mr Wauchope 
called on me yesterday on the part of your Lordship. Your muni- 
ficence, my Lord, certainly deserves my very grateful acknowledg- 
ments ; but your patronage is a bounty peculiarly suited to my 
feelings. I am not master enough of the etiquette of life to know 
whether there be not some impropriety in troubling your Lordship 
with my thanks, but my heart whispered me to do it. From the 
emotions of my inmost soul I do it. Selfish ingratitude, I hope, 
I am incapable of; and mercenary servility, I trust, I shall ever 
have so much honest pride as to detest. R. B. 



XXX1L 

TO MR MACKENZIE, SURGEON, MAUCHLINE. 

Edinburgh, 11th January 1787. 

My dear Sir, — Yours gave me something like the pleasure of 
an old friend's face. I saw your friend and my honoured patron. 
Sir John Whitefoord, just after I received your letter, and gave 
him your respectful compliments. He was pleased to say many 
handsome things of you, which I heard with the more satisfaction 
•as I knew them to be just. 

His son John, who call3 very frequently on me, is in a fuss to- 
day like a coronation. This is the great day — the assembly and 
ball of the Caledonian Hunt ; and John has had the good luck to 
pre-engage the hand of the beauty-famed and wealth-celebrated 
Miss M'Adam, our countrywoman. Between friends, John is 
desperately in for it there, and I am afraid will be desperate 
indeed. 

I am sorry t& send you the last speech and dying words of the 
Lounger. 

A gentleman waited on me yesterday, and gave me, by Lord 
Eglintoun's order, ten guineas by way of subscription for a brace 
of copies of my second edition. 

I met with Lord Maitland and a brother of his to-day at break- 
fast. They are exceedingly easy, accessible, agreeable fellows, 
and seemingly pretty clever. I am ever, my dear sir, yours, 

Robert Burns. 



*62 RUINS' LETTERS. 



XXXI11. 

TO JOHN BALLANTINE, ESQ. 

Edinburgh, January 14$, 1787. 

My honoured Friend, — It gives me a secret comfort to 
observe in myself that I am not yet so far gone as "Willie Gaw's 
Skate — " past redemption ;" for I have still this favourable symp^ 
torn of grace, that when my conscience, as in the case of this 
letter, tells me I am leaving something undone that I ought to do, 
it teases me eternally till I do it. 

I am still " dark as was chaos " in respect to futurity. My 
generous friend, Mr Patrick Miller, has been talking with me 
about a lease of some farm or other in an estate called Dalswinton, 
which he has lately bought near Dumfries. Some life-rented 
embittering recollections whisper me that I will be happier any- 
where than in my old neighbourhood ; but Mr Miller is no judge 
of land ; and though I daresay he means to favour me, yet he 
may give me, in his opinion, an advantageous bargain that may 
ruin me. I am to take a tour by Dumfries as I return, and have 
promised to meet Mr Miller on his lands some time in May. 

I went to a mason-lodge yesternight, where the most Worshipful 
Grand Master Charteris, and all the Grand Lodge of Scotland, 
visited. The meeting was numerous and elegant ; all the different 
lodges about town were present in all their pomp. The Grand 
Master, who presided with great solemnity and honour to himself 
as a gentleman and mason, among other general toasts, gave, 
" Caledonia, and Caledonia's Bard, Brother Burns," which rang 
through the whole assembly with multiplied honours and repeated 
acclamations. As I had no idea such a thing would happen, I 
was downright thunderstruck, and trembling in every nerve, made 
the best return in my power. Just as I had finished, some of the 
grand officers said so loud that I could hear, with a most com- 
forting accent, " Very well indeed !" which set me something to 
rights again. 

I have to-day corrected my 152d page. My best good wishes 
to Mr Aiken. I am ever, dear sir, your much indebted humble 
servant, R. B. 



XXXIY. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Edinburgh, \bth January 1787 

Madam, — Yours of the ninth current, which I am this moment 

honoured with, is a deep reproach to me for ungrateful neglect 

I will tell you the real truth, for I am miserably awkward at a 

Sb. I wished to have written to Dr Moore before T wrote to you ; 



BURNS LETTERS. 



but though, every day since I received yours of December 30th, 
the idea, the wish to write to him has constantly pressed on 
my thoughts, yet I could not for my soul set about it. I know 
his fame and character, and I am one of " the sons of little men." 
To write him a mere matter-of-fact affair, like a merchant's 
order, would be disgracing the little character I have ; and to 
write the author of The View of Society and Manners a letter of 
sentiment — I declare every artery runs cold at the thought. I 
shall try, however, to write to him to-morrow or next day. His 
kind interposition in my behalf I have already experienced, as a 
gentleman waited on me the other day, on the part of Lord Eg- 
lintoun, with ten guineas, by way of subscription for two copies of 
my next edition. 

The word you object to in the mention I have made of my 
glorious countryman and your immortal ancestor, is indeed bor- 
rowed from Thomson ; but it does not strike me as an improper 
epithet. I distrusted my own judgment on your finding fault with 
it, and applied for the opinion of some of the literati here, who 
honour me with their critical strictures, and they all allow it to be 
proper. The song you ask I cannot recollect, and I have not a 
copy of it. I have not composed anything on the great Wal- 
lace, except what you have seen in print, and the enclosed, which 
I will print in this edition.* You will see I have mentioned 
some others of the name. Whe^i I composed my Vision long ago, 
I had attempted a description of Kyle, of which the additional 
stanzas are a part as it originally stood. My heart glows with a 
wish to be able to do justice to the merits of the " saviour of his 
country," which, sooner or later, I shall at least attempt. 

You are afraid I shall grow intoxicated with my prosperity as 
a poet. Alas ! madam, I know myself and the world too well. 
T do not mean any airs of affected modesty ; I am willing to be- 
lieve that my abilities deserve some notice ; but in a most en- 
lightened, informed age and nation, when poetry is, and has been, 
the study of men of the first natural genius, aided with all the 
powers of polite learning, polite books, and polite company — to be 
dragged forth to the full glare of learned and polite observation, 
with all my imperfections of awkward rusticity and crude un- 
polished ideas on my head — I assure j r ou, madam, I do not dis- 
semble when I tell you I tremble for the consequences. The 
novelty of a poet in my obscure situation, without any of those 
advantages which are reckoned necessary for that character, at 
least at this time of day, has raised a partial tide of public notice 
which has borne me to a height where I am absolutely, feelingly 
certain, my abilities are inadequate to support me ; and too surely 
do I see that time when the same tide will leave me and recede 

* Stanzes In The Vision, beginning, "By frtetely tower or palace fair," and end- 
ing with the first Duan. 



064 BURNS' LETTERS. 



perhaps as far below the mark of truth. I do not say this in the 
ridiculous affectation of self-abasement and modesty. 'I have 
studied myself, and know what ground I occupy ; and however a 
friend or the world may differ from me in that particular, I stand 
for my own opinion, in silent resolve, with all the tenaciousness 
of property. I mention this to you once for all, to disburden my 
mind, and I do not wish to hear or say more about it. But, 

When proud fortune's ebbing tide recedes, 

you will bear we witness, that when my bubble of fame was at the 
highest, I stood unintoxicated, with the inebriating cup in my 
hand, looking forward with rueful resolve to the hastening time 
when the blow of calumny should dash it to the ground, with all 
the eagerness of vengeful triumph. 

Your patronizing me, and interesting yourself in my fame and 
character as a poet, I rejoice in — it exalts me in my own idea; 
and whether you can or can not aid me in my subscription, is a 
trifle. Has a paltry subscription-bill any charms to the heart of 
a bard, compared with the patronage of the descendant of the im- 
mortal Wallace ? R. B. 



XXXV. 

to dr Moore. 

Edinburgh [January ?], 1787. 

Sir, — Mrs Dunlop has been so kind as to send me extracts of 
setters she has had from you where you do the rustic bard the 
honour of noticing him and his works. Those who have felt the 
anxieties and solicitudes of authorship, can only know what plea- 
sure it gives to be noticed in such a manner by judges of the first 
character. Your criticisms, sir, I receive with reverence ; only I 
am sorry they mostly come too late ; a peccant passage or two 
that I would certainly have altered, were gone to the press. 

The hope to be admired for ages i?, in by far the greatest part 
of those even who are authors of rejnite, an unsubstantial dream. 
For my part, my first ambition was, and still my strongest wish' 
is, to please my compears, the rustic inmates of the hamlet, while 
ever-changing language and manners shall allow me to be relish- 
ed and understood. I am very willing to admit that I have some 
poetical abilities ; and as few, if any writers, either moral or 
poetical, are intimately acquainted with the classes of mankind 
among whom I have chiefly mingled, I may have seen men and 
manners in a different phases from what is common, which may 
assist originality of thought. Still, I know very well the novelty 
of my character has by far the greatest share in the learned and 
polite notice I have lately had ; and in a language where Pope 
and Churchill have raised the laugh, and Shenstone and Gray 



BURNS LETTERS. 



drawn the tear ; where Thomson and BeMtie have painted the 
landscape, and Lyttleton and Collins describe 1 the heart — I am 
not yain enough to hope for distinguished poetic fame. R. B. 



XXXVI. 

TO JOHN BALLANTINE, ESQ. 

[January 1787.J 
While here I sit, sad and solitary, by the side of a fire in a 
little country inn, and drying my wet clothes, in pops a poor 

fellow of a sodger, and tells me he is going to Ayr. ■ ! 

say I to myself, with a tide of good spirits which the magic of 
that sound, auld toon o' Ayr, conjured up, I will send my last 
song to Mr Ballantine. Here it is — [Bonnie Boon, p. 255]. 



XXXVII. 
TO THE REV. G. LAWRIE. 

NEW MILLS, NEAR KILMARNOCK. 

Edinburgh, February 5, 1787. 

Reverend and dear Sir,— When I look at the date of your 
kind letter, my heart reproaches me severely with ingratitude in 
neglecting so long to answer it. I will not trouble you with any 
account, by way of apology, of my hurried life and distracted at- 
tention ; do me the justice to believe that my delay by no means 
proceeded from want of respect. I feel, and ever shall feel for you, 
the mingled sentiments of esteem for a friend, and reverence for 
a father. 

I thank you, sir, with all my soul, for your friendly hints, 
though I do not need them so much as my friends are apt tc 
imagine. You are dazzled with newspaper accounts and distant 
reports ; but in reality I have no great temptation to be intoxi- 
cated with the cup of prosperity. Novelty may attract the at- 
tention of mankind a while ; to it I owe my present eclat ; but I 
see the time not far distant when the popular tide which has 
borne me to a height of which I am perhaps unworthy, shall re 
cede with silent celerity, and leave me a barren waste of sand, to 
descend at my leasure to my former station. I do not say this in 
the affectation of modesty : I see the consequence is unavoidable, 
and am prepared for it. I had been at a good deal of pains to 
form a just, impartial estimate of my intellectul powers before I 
came here ; I have not added, since I came to Edinburgh, any- 
thing to the account ; and I trust I shall take every atom of it 
back to my shades, the coverts of my unnoticed early years. 



&6C> BURNS' LETTERS. 



In Dr Bi&cklock, whpm I see very often, I have found what 1 
would have expected in our friend, a clear head and an excellent 
heart. 

By far the most agreeable hours I spend in Edinburgh must be 
placed to the account of Miss Lawrie and her pianoforte. I can- 
not help repeating to you and Mrs Lawrie a compliment that Mr 
Mackenzie, the celebrated " Man of Feeling," paid to Miss Lawrie 
the other night at the concert. I had come in at the interlude, 
and sat down by him till I -saw Miss Lawrie in a seat not very far 
distant, and went up to pay my respects to her. On my return 
to Mr Mackenzie, he asked me who she was : I told him 'twas the 
daughter of a reverend friend of mine in the west country. He 
returned, there was something very striking, to his idea, in her 
appearance. On my desiring to know what it was, he was pleased 
to say, a She has a great deal of the elegance of a well-bred lady 
about her, with all the sweet simplicity of a country girl." 

My compliments to all the happy inmates of St Margaret's. I 
am, my dear sir, yours most gratefully, Robert Burns. 



XXXVIII. 

TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN. 

My Lord, — The honour your Lordship has done me, by youi 
notice and advice in yours of the 1st instant, I shall ever grate* 
fully remember — 

Praise from thy lips 'tis mine with joy to boast, 
They best can give it who deserve it most. 

Your Lordship touches the darling chord of my heart, when 
you advise me to fire my Muse at Scottish story and Scottish 
scenes. I wish for nothing more than to make a leisurely pil- 
grimage through my native country ; to sit and muse on those 
once hard-contended fields, where Caledonia, rejoicing, saw her 
bloody lion borne through broken ranks to victory and fame ; and, 
catching the inspiration, to pour the deathless names in song, 
But, my Lord, in the midst of these enthusiastic reveries, a long- 
visaged, dry, moral-looking phantom, strides across my imagina- 
tion, and pronounces these emphatic words : — 

" I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence. Friend, I do not come to 
open the ill-closed wounds of your follies and misfortunes merely 
to give you pain : I wish through these wounds to imprint a 
lasting lesson on your heart. I will not mention how many of 
my salutary advices you have despised ; I have given you line 
upon line, and precept upon precept ; and while I was chalking 
out to you the straight way to wealth and character, with 
audacious effrontery you have zig-zagged across the path, con- 
temning me to my face. You know the consequences. It is not 



BURNS' LETTERS. 367 



yet three months since home was so hot for you, that you were 
on the wing for the western shore of the Atlantic, not to make a 
fortune, but to hide your misfortune. 

"Now that your dear-loved Scotia puts it in your power to 
return to the situation of your forefathers, will you follow these 
will-o'-wisp meteors of fancy and whim, till they bring you once 
more to the brink of ruin ? I grant that the utmost ground you 
can occupy is but half a step from the veriest poverty ; but still 
it is half a step from it. If all that I can urge be inef- 
fectual, let her who seldom calls to you in vain, let the call 
of pride, prevail with you. You know how you feel at the iron 
gripe of ruthless oppression : you know how you bear the galling 
sneer of contumelious greatness. I hold you out the conveniences, 
the comforts of life, independence, and character on the one hand; 
I tender you servility, dependence, and wretchedness on the 
other. I will not insult your understanding by bidding you make 
a choice." 

This, my lord, is unanswerable. I must return to my humble 
station, and woo my rustic Muse in my wonted way, at the 
plough-tail. Still, my lord, while the drops of life warm my 
heart, gratitude to that dear-loved country in which I boast my 
birth, and gratitude to those her distinguished sons who have 
honoured me so much with their patronage and approbation, 
shall, while stealing through my humble shades, ever distend my 
bosom, and at times, as now, draw forth the swelling tear. 

R. B. 



XXXIX. 
TO DR MOORE. 

Edinburgh, 15th February 1787. 

Sir, — Pardon my seeming neglect in delaying so longto acknow- 
ledge the honour you have done me in your kind notice of me, 
January 23d. Not many months ago, I knew no other employ- 
ment than following the plough, nor could boast anything higher 
fehan a distant acquaintance with a country clergyman. Mere 
greatness never embarasses me ; I have nothing to ask from the 
great, and I do not fear their judgment; but genius, polished by 
learning, and at its proper point of elevation in the eye of the 
world, this of late I frequently meet with, and tremble at its 
approach. I scorn the affectation of seeming modesty to cover 
self-conceit. That I have some merit I do not deny ; but I see 
with frequent wringings of heart that the novelty of my char- 
acter, and the honest national prejudice of my countrymen, have 
borne me to a height altogether untenable to my abilities. 

For the honour Miss Williams has done me, please sir, return 
her in my name my most grateful thanks. I have more than 



SG8 burns' letters. 



once thought of paying her in kind, but have hitherto quitted the 
idea in hopeless despondency. I had never before heard of her ; 
but the other day I got her poems, which, for several reasons, 
some belonging to the head, and others the offspring of the heart, 
give me a great deal of pleasure. I have little pretensions to 
critic lore : there are, I think, two characteristic features in her 
poetry — the unfettered wild flight of native genius, and the 
querulous, sombre tenderness of " time-settled sorrow." 

I only know what pleases me, often without being able to tell 
why. ' R. B. 



XL. 

TO JOHN BALLANTINE, ESQ. 

Edinburgh, Feb. 24, 1787. 
My honoured Friend, — I will soon be with you now, in guid 
black prent— in a week or ten days at farthest. I am obliged, 
against my own wish, to print subscribers' names ; so if any of 
my Ayr friends have subscription-bills, they must be sent into 
Creech directly. I am getting my phiz done by an eminent en- 
graver, and if it can be ready in time, I will appear in my book, 
looking, like all other fools, to my title-page. R. B. 



XLI. 

Session-house within the parish of Canongate, the twenty-second 
day of February, one thousand seven hundred eighty-seven 
years. 

Sederunt of the Managers of the Kirk and Kirkyard Funds of 
Canongate; 

Which day, the treasurer to the said funds produced a letter 
from Mr Robert Burns, of date the 6th current, which was read 
and appointed to be engrossed in their sederunt-book, and of which 
letter the tenor follows : — 

"To the Honourable Bailies of Canongate, Edinburgh,— Gentle- 
men, I am sorry to be told that the remains of Robert Fergusson, 
the so justly celebrated poet, a man whose talents for ages to come 
will do honour to our Caledonian name, lie in your churchyard 
among the ignoble dead, unnoticed and unknown. 

" Some memorial to direct the steps of the lovers of Scottish 
song, when they wish to shed a tear over the " narrow house " of 
the bard who is no more, is surely a tribute due to Fergusson's 
memory — a tribute I wish to have the honour of paying. 

" I petition you, then, gentlemen, to permit me to lay a simple 



BURNS' LETTERS. 3GS 



stone over his revered ashes, to remain an unalienable property 
to his deathless fame. I have the honour to be, gentlemen, 
your very humble servant (sic subscribitur), 

" Robert Burns." 

Therefore the said managers, in consideration of the laudable 
and disinterested motion of Mr Burns, and the propriety of his 
request, did, and hereby do unanimously, grant power and liberty 
to the said Robert Burns to erect a headstone at the grave of the 
said Robert Fergusson, and to keep up and preserve the same to 
his memory in all time coming. — Extracted forth of the records 
of the managers, by William Sprot, Clerk. 



XLII. 

TO 



Edinburgh, 1787. 

My dear Sir — You may think, and too justly, that I am a 
selfish, ungrateful fellow, having received so many repeated in- 
stances of kindness from you, and yet never putting pen to paper 
to say thank you ; but if you knew what a life my conscience 
has led me on that account, your good heart would think yourself 
too much avenged. By the by, there is nothing in the whole 
frame of man which seems to be so unaccountable as that thing 
called conscience. Had the troublesome yelping cur powers 
sufficient to prevent a mischief, he might be of use ; but that the 
beginning of the business, his feeble efforts are to the workings ot 
passion as the infant frosts of an autumnal morning to the un- 
clouded fervour of the rising sun : and no sooner are the tumul- 
tuous doings of the wicked deed over, than amidst the bitter 
native consequences of folly in the very vortex of our horrors, up 
starts conscience, and harrows us with the feelings of the damned. 

I have enclosed you, by way of expiation, some verses and 
prose, that, if they merit a place in your truly-entertaining mi- 
cellany, you are welcome to. The prose extract is literally a? 
Mr Sprot sent it me. 

The inscription on the stone is as follows : — 

'•HERE LIES ROBERT FERGUSSON, POET. 
Born, September 5th, 1751— Died, 16th October 1774 

No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, 

* No storied urn, nor animated bust;' 
Ibis simple stone directs pale Scotia's way 

To pour her sorrows o'er her poet's duet*' 



870 BURNS' LE1TERS. 



XLIII. 

TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 

[Edinburgh, February 1707.] 
My Lord, — I wanted to purchase a profile of your lordship 
which I was told was to be got in town ; but I am truly sorry to 
see that a blundering painter has spoiled a "human face divine." 
The enclosed stanzas I intended to have written below a picture 
or profile of your lordship, could I have been so happy as to pro- 
cure one with anything of a likeness. 

As I will soon return to my shades, I wanted to have something 
like a material object for my gratitude ; I wanted to have it in 
my power to say to a friend, there is my noble patron, my generous 
benefactor. Allow me, my lord, to publish these verses. I con- 
jure your lordship, by the honest throe of gratitude, by the 
generous wish of benevolence, by all the powers and feelings 
which compose the magnanimous mind, do not deny me this 
petition. I owe much to your lordship : and, what has not in 
some other instances always been the case with me, the weight of 
the obligation is a pleasing load. I trust I have a heart as inde- 
pendent as your lordship's, than which I can say nothing more : 
and I would not be beholden to favours that would crucify my 
feelings. Your dignified character in life, and manner of sup- 
porting that character, are flattering to my pride ; and I would 
be jealous of the purity of my grateful attachment, where I was 
under the patronage of one of the much-favoured sons of fortune. 
Almost every poet has celebrated his patrons, particularly 
when they were names dear to fame, and illustrious in their 
country ; allow me, then, my lord, if you think the verses have 
intrinsic merit, to tell the world how much I have the honour tc 
be, your lordship's highly-indebted, and ever grateful humble 
servant, R. B. 



XLIV. 

TO THE HON. HENRY ERSKINE. 

Two o'clock. 
Sir, — I showed the enclosed political ballad to my Lord Glen- 
cairn, to have his opinion whether I should publish it ; as I 
suspect my political tenets, such as they are, may be rather 
heretical in the opinion of some of my best friends. I have a few 
first principles in religion and politics, which, I believe, I would 
not easily part with ; but for all the etiquette of, by whom, in 
what manner, &c, I would not have a dissocial word about it 
with any one of God's creatures, particularly an honoured patron 



BURNS' LETTERS. 371 



or a respected friend. His lordship seems to think the piece may 
appear in print, but desired me to send you a copy for your 
suffrage. I am, with the sincerest gratitude for the notice with 
which you have been pleased to honour the rustic bard, sir, your 
most devoted humble servant, Robt. Burns. 



XLV. 
TO MR WILLIAM DUNBAR. 

Lawx^iarket, Monday Morning. 

Dear Sir, — In justice to Spenser, I must acknowledge that 
there is scarcely a poet in the language could have been a more 
agreeable present to me ; and in justice to you, allow me to say, 
sir, that I have not met with a man in Edinburgh to whom 1 
would so willingly have been indebted for the gift. The tattered 
rhymes I herewith present you, and the handsome volumes of 
Spenser for which I am so much indebted to your goodness, may 
perhaps be not in proportion to one another ; but be that as it 
may, my gift, though far less valuable, is as sincere a mark of 
esteem as yours. 

The time is approaching when 1 shall return to my shades ; and 
I am afraid my numerous Edinburgh friendships are of so tender 
a construction that they will not bear carriage with me. Yours 
is one of the few that I could wish of a more robust constitution. 
It is indeed very probable that when I leave this city we part 
never more to meet in this sublunary sphere ; but I have a strong 
fancy that in some future eccentric planet, the comet of happier 
systems than any with which astronomy is yet acquainted, you* 
and I, among the harum-scarum sons of imagination and whim, 
with a hearty shake of a hand, a metaphor, and a laugh, shall 
recognise old acquaintance : 

Where Wit may sparkle all its rays, 

Uncurst with Caution's fears ; 
That Pleasure, basking in the blaze, 

Rejoice for endless years. 

[ have the honour to be, with the warmest sincerity, dear sir, &c. 

R. B. 



XLVI, 
TO MR JAMES OANDLISH * 

STUDENT IN PHYSIC, GLASGOW COLLEGE. 

Edinburgh, March 21st, 1787. 
My ever dear old Acquaintance, — I was equally surprised 
and pleased at your letter, though I daresay you will think, by 

* Father of Rev. Dr Candlish of Edinburgh. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



my delaying so long to write to you, that I am so drowned in the 
intoxication of good fortune as to be indifferent to old and once 
dear connections. The truth is. I was determined to write a good 
letter, full of argument, amplification, erudition, and, as Bayes 
says, all that. I thought of it, and thought of it, and by my sou] 
I could not ; and, lest you should mistake the cause of my silence, 
I just sit down to tell you so. Don't give yourself credit, though, 
that the strength of your logic scares me : the truth is, I never 
mean to meet you on that ground at all. You have shown me 
one thing which was to be demonstrated : that strong pride of 
reasoning, with a little affectation of singularity, may mislead the 
best of hearts. I likewise, since you and I were first acquainted, 
in the pride of despising old woman's stories, ventured in " the 
daring path Spinosa trod ;" but experience of the weakness, not 
the strength, of human powers, made me glad to grasp at re- 
vealed religion. 

I am still, in the Apostle Paul's phrase, " The old man with 
his deeds," as when we were sporting about the " Lady Thorn." 
I shall be four weeks here yet at least ; and so I shall expect to 
hear from you : welcome sense, welcome nonsense. I am, with 
the warmest sincerity, R. B. 



XLVIL 
TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Edinburgh, March 22, 1787. 

Madam, — I read your letter with watery eyes. A little, very 
^little while ago, I had scarce a friend but the stubborn pride oi 
my own bosom ; now I am distinguished, patronized, befriended 
by you. Your friendly advices, I will not give them the cold 
name of criticisms, I receive with reverence. I have made some 
small alterations in what I before had printed. I have the ad- 
vice of some very judicious friends among the literati here, but 
with them I sometimes find it necessary to claim the privilege oi 
thinking for myself. The noble Earl of Glencairn, to whom I 
owe more than to any man, does me the honour of giving me his 
strictures : his hints, with respect to impropriety or indelicacy, I 
follow implicitly. 

You kindly interest yourself in my future views and prospects : 
there I can give you no light. It is all 

M Dark as was chaos ere the infant sun 
Was rolled together, or had tried his beams 
Athwart the gloom profound." 

The appellation of a Scottish bard is by far my highest pride 
to continue to deserve it is my most exalted ambition. Scottish 
scenes and Scottish story are the themes I could wish to sing. I 
have no dearer aim than to have it in my power, unplagued with 



BURNS' LETTERS. 373 



the routine of business — for which, Heaven knows, I am unfit 
enough — to make leisurely pilgrimages through Caledonia ; to 
sit on the fields of her battles, to wander on the romantic banks 
of her rivers, and to muse by the stately towers or venerable 
ruins, once the honoured abodes of her heroes. 

But these are all Utopian thoughts. I have dallied long 
enough with life ; 'tis time to be in earnest. I have a fond, an 
aged mother to care for, and some other bosom-ties perhaps 
equally tender. Where the individual only suffers by the con- 
sequences of his own thoughtlessness, indolence, or folly, he may 
be excusable — nay, shining abilities, and some of the nobler 
virtues, may half sanctify a heedless character ; but where God 
and nature have intrusted the welfare of others to his care, — 
where the trust is sacred and the ties are dear, — that man must 
be far gone in selfishness, or strangely lost to reflection, whom 
these connections will not rouse to exertion. 

I guess that I shall clear between two and three hundred pounds 
by my authorship : with that sum I intend, so far as I may be 
said to have any intention, to return to my old acquaintance, 
the plough, and if I can meet with a lease by which I can live, 
to commence farmer. I do not intend to give up poetry ; being 
bred to labour secures me independence, and the Muses are my 
chief, sometimes have been my only enjoyment. If my practice 
second my resolution, I shall have principally at heart the serious 
business of life ; but while following my plough, or building up 
my shocks, I shall cast a leisure glance to that dear, that only 
feature of my character which gave me the notice of my country 
ind the patronage of a Wallace. 

, Thus, honoured madam, I have given you the bard, his situa- 
tion and his views, native as they are in his own besom. R. B. 



XL VIII. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Edixbuegh, loth April 1787. 
Madam,— There is an affectation of gratitude which I dislike. 
The periods of Johnson and the pauses of Sterne may hide p, self- 
ish heart. For my part, madam, I trust I have too much pride 
for servility, and too little prudence for selfishness. I have this 
moment broken open your letter, but 

" Rude am I in speech, 
And therefore little can I grace my cause 
In speaking for myself " — 

so I shall not trouble you with any fine speeches and hunted 
figures. I shall just lay my hand on my heart, and say, I hope ] 
shall ever have the truest, the warmest sense of your goodness. 



874 BURNS' LETTERS. 



I come abroad, in print, for certain on Wednesday. Your orders 
I shall punctually attend to ; only, by the way, I must tell you that 
I was paid before for Dr Moore's and Miss Williams's copies 
through the medium of Commissioner Cochrane in this place ; but 
that we can settle when I have the honour of waiting on you. 

Dr Smith* was just gone to London the morning before I re- 
ceived your letter to him. R. B. 



XL1X. 
TO DR MOORE. 

Edinburgh, 23d April 1787. 

1 received the books, and sent the one you mentioned to Mrs 
Dunlop. I am ill skilled in beating the coverts of imagination 
for metaphors of gratitude. I thank you, sir, for the honour you 
have done me, and to my latest hour will warmly remember it. 
To be highly pleased with your book, is what I have in common 
with the world ; but to regard these volumes as a mark of the 
author's friendly esteem, is a still more supreme gratification. 

I leave Edinburgh in the course of ten days or a fortnight, and 
after a few pilgrimages over some of the classic ground of Cale- 
donia, — Cowden Knowes, Banks of Yarrow, Tweed, &c, — I shall 
return to my rural shades, in all likelihood never more to quit them. 
I have formed many intimacies and friendships here ; but I am 
afraid they are all of too tender a construction to bear carriage 
a hundred and fifty miles. To the rich, the great, the fashion- 
able, the polite, I have no equivalent to offer ; and 1 am afraid 
my meteor appearance will by no means entitle mc to a settled 
correspondence with any of you, who are the permanent lights of 
genius and literature. 

My most respectful compliments to Miss Williams. If once this 
tangent flight of mine were over, and I were returned to m\ 
wonted leisurely motion in my old circle, 1 may probably endea- 
vour to return her poetic compliment in kind. R. B. 



L. 
TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Edinburgh, 30th April 1787. 

Your criticisms, madam, I understand very well, ana 

coiild have wished to have pleased you better. You are right in 
your guess that I am not very amenable to counsel. Poets, much 
my superiors, have so flattered those who possessed the adventi- 
tious qualities of wealth and power, that I am determined to flatter 
do created being, either in prose or verse. 

* The author of the Wealth of Nation! 



BUKNS' LETTERS. 



I set as little by princes, lords, clergy, critics, &c, as all these 
respective gentry do by my bardship. I know what I may expect 
from the world by and by — illiberal abuse, and perhaps contemp- 
tuous neglect. 

I am happy, madam, that some of my own favourite pieces aro 
distinguished by your particular approbation. For my Dream, 
which has unfortunately incurred your loyal displeasure, I hope 
in four weeks, or less, to have the honour of appearing at Dunlop 
in its defence in person. R. B. 



LI. 
TO THE REV. DR HUGH BLAIR. 

Lawxmarket, Edinburgh, 3d May 17S7. 

Rev. and much-respected Sir, — I leave Edinburgh to-mor- 
row morning, but could not go without troubling you with half a 
line, sincerely to thank you for the kindness, patronage, and 
friendship you have shown me. I often felt the embarrassment 
of my singular situation : drawn forth from the veriest shades of 
life to the glare of remark, and honoured by the notice of those 
illustrious names of my country whose works, while they are ap- 
plauded to the end of time, will ever instruct and mend the heart. 
However the meteor-like novelty of my appearance in the world 
might attract notice, and honour me with the acquaintance of the 
permanent lights of genius and literature, those who are truly 
benefactors of the immortal nature of man, I knew very well that 
my utmost merit was far unequal to the task of preserving that 
character when once the novelty was over : I have made up my 
mind that abuse, or almost even neglect, will not surprise me in 
my quarters. 

I have sent you a proof-impression of Beugo's work for me, 
done on Indian paper, as a trifling but sincere testimony with 
what heart-warm gratitude I am, &c. R. B. 



LII. 

TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ. 

Selkirk, loth May 1787. 
My honoured Friend, — The enclosed {Willie's Azva, p. 115) 
I have just wrote, nearly extempore, in a solitary inn in Selkirk, 
after a miserably wet day's riding. I have been over most of 
East Lothian, Berwick, Roxburgh, and Selkirk shires ; and next 
week I begin a tour through the north of England. Yesterday I 
dined with Lady Harriet, sister to my noble patron, Quern Beus 
eonservet / I would write till I would tire you as much with dulJ 



373 BURNS' LETTERS. 



prose, as I daresay by this time you are with wretched verse ; but 
I am jaded to death; so, with a grateful farewell, I have the 
honour to be, good sir, yours sincerely, R. B. 



LIU. 

TO MR PATTISON, BOOKSELLER, PAISLEY. 

Berrywell, near Dunse, May 17, 1787. 
Dear Sir, — I am sorry I was out of Edinburgh, making a 
slight pilgrimage to the classic scenes of this country, when I was 
favoured with yours of the 11th instant, enclosing an order of the 
Paisley Banking Company on the Royal Bank for twenty-two 
pounds seven shillings sterling, payment in full, after carriage de- 
ducted, for ninety copies of my book I sent you. According to 
your motions, I see you will have left Scotland before this reaches 
you, otherwise I would send you Holy Willie with all my heart. I 
was so hurried, that I absolutely forgot several things I ought to 
have minded ; among the rest, sending books to Mr Cowan ; but 
any order of yours will be answered at Creech's shop. You will 
please remember that non-subscribers pay six shillings — this is 
Creech's profit ; but those who have subscribed, though their 
names have been neglected in the printed list, which is very in- 
correct, are supplied at the subscription price. I was not at Glas- 
gow, nor do I intend for London ; and I think Mrs Fame is very 
idle to tell so many lies on a poor poet. When you or Mr Cowan 
write for copies, if you should want any, direct to Mr Hill, at 
Mr Creech's shop, and I write to Mr Hill by this post to answer 
either of your orders. Hill is Mr Creech's first clerk, and Creech 
himself is presently in London. I suppose I shall have the plea- 
sure, against your return to Paisley, of assuring you how much 1 
am dear sir, your obliged humble servant, R. B. 



LIV. 



TO MR WILLIAM IsICOL, 

MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH. 

Carlisle, June 1, 1787. 
Kind, honest-hearted Willie, — I'm sitten' doun here, after 
seven-and-forty miles' ridin', e'en as forjeskit and forniaw'd as a 
fbrfochten cock, to gie you some notion o' my land-lowper-like 
stravaigin sin' the sorrowfu' hour that I sheuk hands and parted 
wi' Auld Reekie. 

My auld, ga'd gleyde o' a meere has huchyall'd up hill and down 
brae, in Scotland and England, as *eugh and birnie as a very 



BURNS' LETTERS. 377 



devil wi' me. It's true she's as poor's a sangmaker and as hard'e 
a kirk, and tipper-taipers when she taks the gate, just like a lady's 
gentlewoman in a minuwae, or a hen on a het girdle ; but she's a 
yauld, poutherie girran for a' that, and has a stomach like Willie 
Stalker's meere, that wad hae disgeested tumbler-wheels, for shell 
whip me aff her five stimparts o' the best aits at a down-sittin, 
and ne'er fash her thumb. When ance her ringbanes and spavies, 
her crucks and cramps, are fairly soupl'd, she beets to, beets to, 
and aye the hindmost hour the tightest. I could wager her price 
to a threttie pennies, that for twa or three ooks' ridin' at fifty 
mile a day, that no a galloper acqueesh Clyde and Whithorn 
could cast saut on her tail. 

I hae dander'd owre a' the kintra frae Dunbar to Selcraig, and 
hae forgather'd wi' mony a guid fallow, and mony a weel-far'd 
hizzie. I met wi' twa dink queynes in particular, ane o' them a 
sonsie, fine, fodgel lass, baith braw and bonnie ; the tither was a 
elean-shankit, straught, tight, weel-far'd wench, as blythe's a 
iint white on a flowerie thorn, and as sweet and modest's a new- 
blawn plum-rose in a hazle shaw. They were baith bred to 
mainers by the beuk, and onie ane o' them had as muckle smed- 
dum and rumblegumption as the half o' some presbyteries that 
you and I baith ken. They played me sic a shavie, that I daur 
say, if my harrigals were turned out, ye wad see twa nicks i' the 
heart o' me like the mark o' a kail-whittle in a castock. 

My best respecks to the guidwife and a' our common friens, 
especiall Mr and Mrs Cruikshank, and the honest guidman o 
Jock's Lodge. 

I'll be in Dumfries the morn gif the beast be to the fore, and 
the branks bide hale. Amen ! R. B. 

Anglice, thus .— 

Kind, honest-hearted W t illie,— I have sat down here, after 
Forty-seven miles' hard riding, even as jaded and fatigued as an 
overfought cock, to give ye some notion of my vagabond-like 
wandering since the sorrowful hour that I shook bands and parted 
wi' Auld Reekie [Edinburgh]. 

My old galled mare has hobbled up hill and down slope in Scot- 
land and England, as tough and lively as a very devil with me. 
It is true she is as poor as a song-maker, and as hard as a church, 
and totters when she takes the road just like a lady's gentle- 
woman in a minuet, or a hen on a hot oven ; but she is an alert, 
spirited beast notwithstanding, and has a stomach like Willie 
Stalker's mare, that would have digested cart-wheels, for she'll 
whip me off five-eighths of a Winchester bushel of the best oats 
at a time, with no sort of difficulty. When once her ill-assorted 
joints and spavins, her lameness and cramps, are fairly suppled, 
she improves by little and little, and always the last hour u hey 



878 BURNS' LETTERS. 



beat. I could wager her price against twopence-halfpenny, that 
for two-three weeks' riding at fifty miles a day, not a gallopper 
between Clyde and Whithorn could cast salt on her tail. 

I have sauntered over the whole country from Dunbar to Selkirk, 
and have met with many a good fellow aad many a well-favoured 
maiden. I met with two neat girls, in particular, one of them a 
fine, plump, comfortable-looking lass, well dressed and pretty ; 
the other a well-limbed, straight, tight, well-favoured wench, as 
blithe as a linnet on a flowering thorn, and as sweet and modest 
as a new-blown primrose in a hazel wood. They had both ac- 
quired manners from the book, and any one of them had as much 
smartness and sense as the half of some presbyteries that you and 
I know of. They played me such a prank, that if my viscera 
were turned out, you would see Jwo nicks in the heart of me, like 
the mark of a knife in a cabbage-stalk. 

My best respects to your lady and all our common friends, 
especially Mr and Mrs Cruikshanks, and the honest goodman of 
Jock's Lodge. 

I shall be in Dumfries to-morrow if the beast survive, and the 
bridle keep whole. Amen ! 



LV 



TO MR JAMES SMITH, LINLITHGOW. 

Mauchline, 11th June 1787. 
My dear Sir, — I date this from Mauchline, where I arrived 
on Friday evening last. I slept at John Dow's, and called for my 
daughter; Mr Hamilton and family; your mother, sister, and 
brother ; my quondam Eliza, &c. — all, all well. If anything had 
been wanting to disgust me completely at Armour's family, their 
mean, servile compliance would have done it. Give me a spirit 
like my favourite hero, Milton's Satan — 

" Hail ! horrors, hail ! 
Infernal world! and thou profoundest hell 
Receive thy new possessor! one who brings 
A mind not to be changed by place or timer 

I cannot settle to my mind. Farming— the only thing of which 
I know anything, and Heaven above knows but little do I under- 
stand even of that— I cannot, dare not risk, on farms as they are. 
If I do not fix, I will go for Jamaica. Should I stay in an un- 
settled state at home, I would only dissipate my little fortune, and 
ruin what I intend shall compensate my little ones for the stigma 
I hayc brought on their names. R. !*• 



BURNS' LETTERS. 373 



LVI. 

TO MR WILLIAM NICOL. 

Mauchlike, June 18, 1787 
My dear Friend, — I am now arrived safe in my native country 
after a very agreeable jaunt, and have the pleasure to find all 
my friends well. I breakfasted with your grey-headed, reverend 
friend, Mr Smith ; and was highly pleased both with the cordial 
welcome he gave me, and his most "excellent appearance and 
sterling good sense. 

I have been with Mr Miller at Dalswinton, and am to meet 
him again in August. From my view of the lands, and his recep- 
tion of my bardship, my hopes in that business are rather mended ; 
but still they are but slender. 

I am quite charmed with Dumfries folks — Mr Burnside, the 
clergyman, in particular, is a man whom I shall ever gratefully 
remember ; and his wife, guid forgie me ! I had almost broke the 
tenth commandment on her account ! Simplicity, elegance, good 
sense, sweetness of disposition, good-humour, kind hospitality, are 
the constituents of her manner and heart : in short — but if I say 
one word more about her, I shall be directly in love with her. 

I never, my friend, thought mankind very capable of anything 
generous ; but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and 
the civility of my plebeian brethren (who perhaps formerly eyed 
me askance) since I returned home, have nearly put me out of 
conceit altogether with my species. I have bought a pocket 
Milton, which I carry perpetually about with me, in order to study 
the sentiments, the dauntless magnanimity, the intrepid, unyield- 
ing independence, the desperate daring, and noble defiance of 
hardship, in that personage, Satan. 'Tis true I have just now a 
little cash ; but I am afraid the star that hitherto has shed its 
malignant, purpose-blasting rays full in mj zenith ; that noxious 
planet, so baneful in its influences to the rhyming tribe, I much 
dread it is not yet beneath my horizon. Misfortune dodges the 
path of human life ; the poetic mind finds itself miserably deranged 
in, and unfit for, the walks of business ; add to all, that thought- 
less follies and hairbrained whims, like so many ignes fatui eter- 
nally diverging from the right line of sober discretion, sparkle 
with step-bewitching blaze in the idly-gazing eyes of the poor 
heedless bard, till pop, "he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again." 
God grant this may be an unreal picture with respect to me ! But 
should it not, 1 have very little dependence on mankind. I will 
close my letter with this tribute my heart bids me pay you — 
the many ties of acquaintance and friendship which I have, or 
think I have, in life, I have felt along the lines, and they 
are almost all of them of such frail contexture, that I am sure 



88 D BURNS' LETTERS. 



they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of 
fortune ; but from you, my ever dear sir, I look with confidence 
for the apostolic love that shall wait on me " through good report 
and bad report" — the love which Solomon emphatically says " is 
strong as death." My compliments to Mrs Nicol, and all the circle 
of our common friends. 
P.S. — I shall be in Edinburgh about the latter end of July. 

R. B. 



LYII. 
TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE. 

Arrochar, by Loch Long, June 28, 1787. 
I WRITE you this on my tour through a country where savage 
streams tumble over savage mountains, thinly overspread with 
savage flocks, which starvingly support as savage inhabitants. 
My last stage was Inverary ; to-morrow night's stage Dumbarton. 
I ought sooner to have answered your kind letter, but you know 
I am a man of many sins. R. B 



LVIII. 

TO MR JAMES SMITH. 

June 30, 1787. • 
On our return, at a Highland gentleman'shospitable mansion, we 
fell in with a merry party, and danced till the ladies left us, at 
three in the morning. Our dancing was none of the French or 
English insipid formal movements ; the ladies sang Scotch songs 
like angels, at intervals ; then we flew at " Bab at the Bowster," 
" Tullochgorum," f< Loch Erroch side,"* &c, like midges sporting 
in the mottie sun, or craws prognosticating a storm in a hairst 
day. "When the dear lasses left us. we ranged round the bowl till 
the good-fellow hour of six ; except a few minutes that we went 
out to pay our devotions to the glorious lamp of day peering over 
the towering top of Benlomond. We all kneeled: our worthy 
landlord's son held the bowl, each man a full glass in his hand ; 
and I, as priest, repeated some rhyming nonsense, like Thomas-a- 
Rhymer's prophesies I suppose. After a small refreshment of the 
gifts of Somnus, we proceeded to spend the day on Loch Lomond, 
and reached Dumbarton in the evening. "We dined at another 
good fellow's house, and consequently pushed the bottle ; when 
we went out to mount our horses, we found ourselves " No vera 
fou, but gay lie yet." My two friends and I rode soberly down the 
Loch-side, till by came a Highlandman at the gallop, on a toler- 
ably good horse, but which had never known the ornaments of iron 
or leather. "We scorned to be out-galloped by a Highlandman, so 

* Names of Scotch dancing tunea. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



off we started, whip and spur. My companions, though seemingly 
gaily mounted, fell sadly astern ; but my old mare, Jenny GeddeSj 
one of the Rosinante family, strained past the Highlandman in 
spite of all his efforts with the hair-halter. Just as I was passing 
him, Donald wheeled his horse, as if to cross before me, to mar 
my progress, when down came his horse, and threw his breekless 
rider in a clipt hedge ; and down came Jenny Geddes over all, 
and my hardship between her and the Highlandraan's horse. 
Jenny Geddes trode over me with such cautious reverence, that 
matters were not so bad as might well have been expected ; so I 
cam* off with a few cuts and bruises, and a thorough resolution to 
be a pattern of sobriety for the future. 

I have yet fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business 
of life. I am, just as usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, 
aimless, idle fellow. However, I shall somewhere have a farm 
soon. I was going to say a wife too ; but that must never be my 
blessed tot. I am but a younger son of the house of Parnassus, 
and, like other younger sons of great families, I may intrigue, if 
I choose to run all risks, but must not marry. 

I am afraid I have almost ruined one source, the principal 
one, indeed, of my former happiness — that eternal propensity J 
always had to fall in love. My heart no more glows with feverish 
rapture. I have no paradisical evening interviews stolen from 
the restless cares and prying inhabitants of this weary world. 1 
have only * * *. This last is one of your distant acquaintances, 
has a figure, and elegant manners, and in the train of some great 
folks, whom you know, has seen the politest quarters in Europe. 
I do like her a good deal ; but what piques me is her conduct at 
the commencement of our acquaintance. I frequently visited 
her when I was in ; and after passing regularly the inter- 
mediate degrees between the distant formal bow and the familiar 
grasp round the waist, I ventured, in my careless way, to talk of 
friendship in rather ambiguous terms ; and after her return ' 

to , I wrote to her in the same style. Miss, construing my 

•vords farther, I suppose, than even I intended, flew off in a 
tangent of female dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark in 
an April morning ; and wrote me an answer which measured 
me out very completely what an immense way I had to travel 
before I could reach the climate of her favour. But I am an 
old hawk at the sport ; and wrote her such a cool, deliberate, 
prudent reply, as brought my bird from the aerial towerings pop 
down at my foot like Corporal Trim's hat. 

As for the rest of my acts, and my wars, and all my wise 
sayings, and why my mare was called Jenny Geddes, they shall 
be recorded in a few weeks hence, at Linlithgow, in the chronicles 
of your memory, by Robert Br HNS, 



*82 BURNS'" LETTERS. 



LTX. 

TO MISS - 



My dear Countrywoman, — I am so impatient to show you 
that I am once more at peace with you, that I send you the book I 
mentioned directly, rather than wait the uncertain time of my 
seeing you. I am afraid I have mislaid or lost Collins's Poems, 
which I promised to Miss Irvine. If I can find them, I will for- 
ward them by you ; if not, you must apologise for me. 

I know you will laugh at it when I tell you that your piano 
and you together have made mischief somehow about my h^art. 
My breast has been widowed these many months, and I thought 
myself proof against the fascinating witchcraft ; but I am afraid 
you will " feelingly convince me what I am." I say I am afraid, 
because I am not sure what is the matter with me. I have one 
miserable bad symptom : when you whisper or look kindly to 
another, it gives me a draught of utter misery. I have a kind of 
wayward wish to be with you ten minutes by yourself, though 
what I would say, Heaven above knows, for I am sure I know 
not. I have no formed design in all this, but just, in the naked- 
ness of my heart, write you down a mere matter-of-fact story. 
You may perhaps give yourself airs of distance on this, and that 
will completely cure me ; but 1 wish you would not: just let us 
meet, if you please, in the old beaten way of friendship. 

I will not subscribe myself your humble servant, for that is a 
phrase, T think, at least fifty miles off from the heart ; but I 
will conclude with sincerely wishing that the Great Protector of 
innocence may shield you from the barbed dart of calumny, and 
hand you by the covert snare of deceit. R. B. 



LX 



TO MR JOHN RICHMOND. 

Mossgiel, 7th July 1787. 
My dear Richmond, — I am all impatience to hear of your 
fate since the old confounder of right and wrong has turned you 
out of place by his journey to answer his indictment at the bar of 
the other world.* He will find the practice of the court so dif- 
ferent from the practice in which he has for so many years been 
thoroughly hackneyed, that his friends, if he had any connections 
truly of that kind, which I rather doubt, may well tremble for 
his sake. His chicane, his left-handed wisdom, which stood so 
firmly by him, to such good purpose, here, like other accomplices 
in robbery and plunder, will, now the piratical business is blown, 
in all probability turn king's evidence. 

* Alluding to the recent decease of Richmond's master. 



BURNS* LETTERS. 433 * 



If he has left you any legacy, I beg your pardon for all this ; 
if not, I know you will swear to every word I said about hiin. 

I have lately been rambling over by Dumbarton and Inverary, 
and running a drunken race on the side of Loch Lomond with a 
wild Highlandman ; his horse, which had never known the orna- 
ments of iron or leather, zig-zagged across before my old spavin'd 
hunter, whose name is Jenny Geddes, and down came the High- 
landman, horse and all, and down came Jenny and my hardship ; 
so I have got such a skinful of bruises and wounds, that I shall be 
at least four weeks before I dare venture on my journey to Edin- 
burgh. 

Not one new thing under the sun has happened in Mauchline 
since you left it. I hope this will find you as comfortably situated 
as formerly, or, if Heaven pleases, more so ; but, at all events, I 
trust you will let me know of course how matters' stand with you, 
well or ill, 'Tis but poor consolation to tell the world when mat- 
ters go wrong ; but you know very well your connection and mine 
stands on a different footing. I am ever, my dear friend, yours, 

R. B. 



LXI. 
TO MR ROBERT ALNSLIE. 

Mauchlixe, 23d July 1787. 
My dear Ainslie, — There is one thing for which I set great 
store by you as a friend, and it is this — that I have not a friend 
upon earth, besides yourself, to whom I can talk nonsense without 
forfeiting some degree of his esteem. Now, to one like me, who 
never cares for speaking anything else but nonsense, such a friend 
as you is an invaluable treasure. I was never a rogue, but have 
been a fool all my life ; and in spite of all my endeavours, I see now 
plainly that J shall never be wise. Now, it rejoices my heart to 
have met with such a fellow as you, who, though you are not just 
such a hopeless fool as I, yet I trust you will never listen so much 
to the temptations of the devil as to grow so very wise that you 
will in the least disrespect an honest fellow because he is a fool. 
In short, I have set you down as the staff of my old age, when 
the whole list of my friends will, after a decent share of pity, 
have forgot me. 

Though in the morn comes sturt and strife. 

Yet joy may come at noon; 
And I hope to live a merry, merry life 

When a' their days are done. 

Write me soon, were it but a few lines just to tell ma how that 
good sagacious man your father is — that kind dainty body your 
mother — that strapping chiel your brother Douglas— and my 
friend Rachel, who is as far before Rachel of old, as she was be- 
fore her blear-eyed sister Leah. It, B. 



8S1 BURKS' LETTERS. 



LXII. 

TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE, JUNIOR, 

BERRYWELL, DUNSE. 

Edinburgh, 23(7 August 1787. 

As I gaed up to Dunse, 
To warp a pickle yarn, Lc, 

From henceforth, my dear sir, I am determined to set off with 
my letters like the periodical writers, namely, prefix a kind of 
text, quoted from some classic of undoubted authority, such as the 
author of the immortal piece of which my text is a part. What 
I have to say on my text is exhausted in the chatter I wrote you 
the other day, before I had the pleasure of receiving yours fron? 
Inverleithen ; and sure never was anything more lucky, as I have 
but the time to write this that Mr Nicol, on the opposite side of 
the table, takes to correct a proof-sheet of a thesis. They are 
gabbling Latin so loud that I cannot hear what my own soul is 
saving in my own skull, so must just give you a matter-of-fact 
sentence or two. * * * * 

To-morrow I leave Edinburgh in a chaise : Nicol thinks it more 
comfortable than horseback, to which I say, Amen ; so Jenny 
Creddes [his mare] goes home to Ayrshire, to use a phrase of my 
mother's, " wi' her finger in her mouth." 

Now for a modest verse of classical authority — 

The cats like kitchen, 

The dogs like broe ; 
The lasses like the lads weel. 

And th' auld wives too. 
And we're a' noddin', 

Nid, nid, noddin',; 
We're a' noddin' fou at e'en. 

If this does not please you, let me hear from you ; if you write 
any time before the first of September, direct to Inverness, to be 
left at the post-office till called for ; the next week at Aberdeen ; 
the next at Edinburgh. The sheet is. done ; and I shall just con- 
clude with assuring you that I am, and ever with pride shall be, 
my dear sir, yours, &c. R. B. 



LXIIi, 
TO MR ROBERT MUIR, KILMARNOCK. 

Stirling, 2(>th August 1787. 

My dear Sir, — I intended to have written you from Edinburgh, 

and now write you from Stirling to make an excuse. Here am I, 

on my way to Inverness, with a truly original, but very worthy 

man, a Mr Nicol, one of the masters of the High School in Edin- 



BURNS LETTERS. 383 



burgh. I left Avid Reekie yesterday morning, and have passed, 
besides by-excursions, Linlithgow, Borrowstounness. Falkirk, and 
here am I undoubtedly. This morning I knelt at the tomb of Sir 
John the Graham, the gallant friend of the immortal "Wallace ; 
and two hours ago I said a fervent prayer for old Caledonia over 
the hole in a blue whinstone, where Robert de Bruce fixed hi< 
royal standard on the banks of Bannockburn ; and just now, from 
Stirling Castle, I have seen by the setting sun the glorious pro- 
spect of the windings of Forth throagh the rich carse of Stirling, 
and skirting the equally rich carse of Falkirk. The crops are very 
strong, but so very late that there is no harvest except a ridgo 
or two perhaps in ten miles, all the way I have travelled from 
Edinburgh. 

I left Andrew Bruce and family all well. I will be at least 
three weeks in making my tour, as I shall return by the coast, 
and have many people to call for. 

My best compliments to Charles, our dear kinsman and fellow- 
saint, and Messrs W. and H. Parkers. I hope Hughoc is going 
on and prospering with Miss M'Causlin. 

If I could think on anything sprightly, I should let you hear 
every other post ; but a dull matter-of-fact business like this 
scrawl, the less and the seldomer one writes the better. 

Among other matters-of-fact, I shall add this— that I am. an J 
ever shall be. my dear sir. your obi R. B. 



LXIV. 

TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ. 

Stirling, 2$th August 1757. 
My dear Sir, — Here am I on my way to Inverness. I have 
rambled over the rich, fertile carses of Falkirk and Stirling, and 
am delighted with their appearance : richly-waving crops of wheat, 
barley, &c, but no harvest at all jet, except in one or two places 
an old wife's ridge= Yesterday morning I rode from this town up 
the meandering Devon's banks, to pay my respects to some Ayr- 
shire folks at Harvieston. After breakfast, we made a party to 
go and see the famous Caudron Linn, a remarkable cascade in 
the Devon, about five miles above Harvieston ; and after spending 
one of the most pleasant days I ever had in my life, I returned to 
Stirling in the evening. They are a family, sir, though I had 
not had any prior tie — though they had not been the brothers 
and sisters of a certain generous friend of mine — I would never 
forget them. 1 am told yon have not seen them these several 
years, so you can have very little idea of what these young folks 
are now. Your brother is as tall as you are, but slender rather 
than otherwise ; and I have the satisfaction to inform you, that 



3SG BURNS' LETTERS. 



he is getting the better of those consumptive symptoms which 1 
suppose you know were threatening him. His make, and par- 
ticularly his manner, resemble you, but he will- have a still finer 
face. (I put in the word stiU to please Mrs Hamilton.) Good 
sense, modesty, and at the same time a just idea of that respect 
that man owes to man, and has a right in his turn to exact, are 
striking features in his character ; and, what with me is the 
Alpha and Omega, he has a heart that might adorn the breast 
of a poet 1 Grace has a good figure and the look of health and 
cheerfulness, but nothing else remarkable in her person. I scarcely 
ever saw so striking a likeness as is between her and your little 
Beenie ; the mouth and chin particularly. She is reserved at first ; 
but as we grew better acquainted, I was delighted with the native 
frankness of her manner, and the sterling sense of her observation. 
Of Charlotte I cannot speak in common terms of admiration : she 
is not only beautiful, but lovely. Her form is elegant ; her features 
not regular, but they have the smile of sweetness and the settled 
complacency of good-nature in the highest degree ; and her com- 
plexion, now that she has happily recovered her wonted health, 
is equal to Miss Burnet's. After the exercise of our riding to the 
Falls, Charlotte was exactly Dr Donne's mistress : — 

" Her pure and eloquent blood 
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, 
That one would almost say her body thought." 

Her eyes are fascinating ; at once expressive of good sense, ten- 
derness, and a noble mind. 

I do not give you all this account, my good sir, to flatter you. 
I mean it to reproach you. Such relations the first peer in the 
realm might own with pride ; then why do you not keep up more 
correspondence with these so amiable young folks ? I had a 
thousand questions to answer about you. I had to describe the 
Mttle ones with the minuteness of anatomy. They were highly 
delighted when I told them that John was so good a boy, and so 
fine a scholar, and that Willie was going on still very pretty : 
but I have it in commission to tell her from them that beauty is 
a poor silly bauble without she be good. Miss Chalmers I had 
left in Edinburgh, but I had the pleasure of meeting with Mrs 
Chalmers ; only Lady Mackenzie being rather a little alarmingly 
ill of a sore throat, somewhat marred our enjoyment. 

I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. My most respectful 
compliments to Mrs Hamilton, Miss Kennedy, and Dr Mackenzie. 
I shall probably write him from some stage or other. I am 
ever, sir, yours most gratefully, H. B, 



BURNS' betters. 



LXV. 

TO MR WALKER, BLAIR OF ATHOLE. 

Inverness, 5th September 1787. 

My dear Sir, — I have just time to write the foregoing (p. 121). 
and to tell you that it was (at least most part of it) the effusion of a 
half -hour I spent at Bruar. I do not mean it was extempore, for 
I have endeavoured to brush it up as well as Mr Nicol's chat and 
the jogging of the chaise would allow. It eases my heart a good 
deal, as rhyme is the coin with which a poet pays his debts of 
honour or gratitude. "What I owe to the noble family of Athole, 
of the first kind, I shall ever proudly boast — what I owe of the 
last, so help me, God, in my hour of need ! I shall never forget. 

The " little angel-band !" I declare I prayed for them very 
sincerely to-day at the Fall of Fyers. I shall never forget the 
fine family-piece I saw at Blair: the amiable, the truly noble 
duchess, with her smiling little seraph in her lap, at the head of 
the table — the lovely " olive plants," as the Hebrew bard finely 
says, round the happy mother — the beautiful Mrs Graham ; the 
lovely, sweet Miss Cathcart, &c. I wish I had the powers of 
Guido to do them justice ! My Lord Duke's kind hospitality — 
markedly kind indeed: Mr Graham of Fintry's charms of con- 
versation : Sir "W. Murray's friendship : in short, the recollection 
of all that polite, agreeable company, raises an honest glow in my 
bosom. R. B, 



LXVI. 

TO MR GILBERT BURNS. 

Edixbuegh, nth September 1787. 
My dear Sir, — I arrived here safe yesterday evening, after a 
tour of twenty-two days, and travelling near 600 miles, windings 
included. My farthest stretch was about ten miles beyond Inver- 
ness. I went through the heart of the Highlands by Crieff, Tay- 
mouth, the famous seat of Lord Breadalbane, down the Tay, among 
cascades and Druidical circles of stones, to Dunkeld, a seat of the 
Duke of Athole ; thence across Tay, and up one of his tributary 
streams to Blair of Athole, another of the duke's seats, where I 
had the honour of spending nearly two days with his Grace and 
family ; thence many miles through a wild country among cliffs 
gray with eternal snows and gloomy savage glens, till I crossed 
Spey, and went down the stream through Strathspey, so famous 
in Scottish music ; Badenoch, &c, till I reached Grant Castle, 
where I spent half a day with Sir James Grant and family ; and 
then crossed the country for Fort-George, but called by the way 



888 BURNS' LETTERS. 



at Cawdor, the ancient seat of Macbeth ; there I saw the identical 
bed in which tradition says King Duncan was murdered ; lastly, 
from Fort-George to Inverness. 

I returned by the Coast, through Nairn, Forres, and so on, to 
Aberdeen, thence to Stonehive (Stonehaven), where James Burnes, 
from Montrose, met me by appointment. I spent two days among 
our relations, and found our aunts, Jean and Isabel, still alive, and 
hale old women. John Caird, though born the same year with 
our father, walks as vigorously as I can — they have* had several 
letters from his son in New York. William Brand is likewise a 
stout old fellow ; but further particulars I delay till I see you, 
which will be in two or three weeks. The rest of my stages are 
not worth rehearsing : warm as I was from Ossian's country, where 
I had seen his very grave, what cared I for fishing-towns or fertile 
carses ? I slept at the famous Brodie of Brodie's one night, and 
dined at Gordon Castle next day, with the duke, duchess, and 
family. I am thinking to cause my old mare to meet me, by 
means of John Ronald, at Glasgow ; but you shall hear further 
from me before I leave Edinburgh. My duty and many compli- 
ments from the north to my mother ; and my brotherly compli- 
ments to the rest. I have been trying for a berth for William, 
but am not likely to be successful. Farewell. R. B. 



LXVII. 

TO TtfE REV. JOHN SKINNER. 

Edinburgh, October 1787. 
Reverend and venerable Sir, — Accept, in plain dull prose, 

| my most sincere thanks for the best poetical compliment I evet 
received. I assure you, sir, as a poet, you have conjured up an 
airy demon of vanity in my fancy which the best abilities in your 
other capacity would be ill able to lay. I regret, and while 1 live I 
shall regret, that when I was in the north, I had not the pleasure 
of paying a younger brothers dutiful respect to the author of 
the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw — " Tullochgorum's my de- 
light ! " The world may think slightingly of the craft of song- 
making, if they please ; but, as Job says, " Oh that mine adversary 

i had written a book ! " — let them try. There is a certain something 

j in the old Scotch songs, a wild happiness of thought and expression, 
which peculiarly marks them, not only from English songs, but 
also from the modern efforts of song-wrights in our native manner 
and language. The only remains of this enchantment, these spells 

[ of the imagination, rest with you. Our true brother, Ross of 
Lochlee, was likewise " owre cannie" — " a wild warlock" — but now 

j he sings among the " sons of the morning." 

I have often wished, and will certainly endeavour, to form a 



BURNS' LETTERS. 383 



kind of common acquaintance among all the genuine sons of Cale- 
donian song. The world, busy in low prosaic pursuits, may over- 
look most of us ; but " reverence thyself." The world is not our 
peers, so we challenge the jury. "We can lash that world, and find 
ourselves a very great source of amusement and happiness inde* 
pendent of that world. 

There is a work going on in Edinburgh just now which claims 
your best assistance. An engraver in this town has set about 
collecting and publishing all the Scotch songs, with the music, 
that can be found. Songs in the English language, if by Scotch- 
men, are admitted, but the music must all be Scotch. Drs Beattie 
and Blacklock are lending a hand, and the first musician in town 
presides over that department. I have been absolutely crazed 
about it, collecting old stanzas, and every information remaining 
respecting their origin, authors, &c, &c. This last is^but a very 
fragment business ; but at the end of his second number — the first 
is already published — a small account will be given of the authors, 
particularly to preserve those of latter times. Your three songs, 
Tullockgorum, John of Badenyon, and Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn, 
go in this second number. I was determined, before I got your 
letter, to write you, begging that you would let me know where 
the editions of these pieces may be found, as you would wish them 
to continue in future times ; and if you would be so kind to this 
undertaking as send any songs, of your own or others, that you 
would think proper to publish, your name will be inserted among 
the other authors — * Nill ye, will ye." One-half of Scotland 
already give your songs to other authors. Paper is done. I beg 
to hear from you ; the sooner the better, as I leave Edinburgh in 
a fortnight or three weeks. I am, with the warmest sincerity, sir, 
your obliged humble servant, R. B. 



LXVIII. 

TO MISS CHALMERS. 

Sept. 26, 1787. 
I send Charlotte the first number of the songs ; I would not 
wait for the second number; I hate delays in little marks of friend- 
ship as I hate dissimulation in the language of the heart. I am 
determined to pay Charlotte a poetic compliment, if I could nit- 
on some glorious old Scotch air, in number second. You will see 
a small attempt on a shred of paper in the book ; but though Dr 
Blacklock commended it very highly, I am not just satisfied with 
it myself. I intend to make it a description of some kind : the 
whining cant of love, except in real passion, and by a masterly 
hand, is to me as insufferable as the preaching cant of old Father 
Smeaton, Whig minister at Kilmaurs. Darts, flames, Cupids 



o90 BURNS' LETTERS. 



loves, graces, and all that farrago, are just a Mauchline 

a senseless rabble. 

I got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight from the old vener- 
able author of TuUochgorum, John of Badenyon, &c. I suppose 
you know he is a clergyman. It is by far the finest poetic com- 
pliment I ever got. I will send you a copy of it. 

I go on Thursday or Friday to Dumfries, to wait on Mr Miller 
about his farms. Do tell that to Lady Mackenzie, that she may 
give me credit for a little wisdom. " I, Wisdom, dwell with Pru- 
dence." "What a blessed fireside ! How happy should I be to 
pass a winter evening under their venerable roof, and smoke a 
pipe of tobacco, or drink water-gruel with them ! With solemn, 
lengthened, laughter-quashing gravity of phiz ! What sage re- 
marks on the good-for-nothing sons and daughters of indiscretion 
and folly ! And what frugal lessons, as we straitened the fireside 
circle, on the uses of the poker and tongs ! 

Miss Niinmo is very well, and begs to be remembered in the 
old way to you. I used all my eloquence, all the persuasive 
flourishes of the hand, and heart-melting modulation of periods 
in my power, to urge her out to Harvieston ; but all in vain. 
My rhetoric seems quite to have lost its effect on the lovely half 
of mankind. I have seen the day — but this is a " tale of other 
years." In my conscience I believe that my heart has been so 
oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified. I look on the sex with 
something like the admiration with which I regard the starry sky 
in a frosty December night. I admire the beauty of the Creator's 
workmanship ; I am charmed with the wild but graceful eccen- 
tricity of their motions ; and — wish them good night. I mean 
this with respect to a certain passion dontfai eu Vhonneur d'etre 
un miserable esclave : as for friendship, you and Charlotte have 
given me pleasure, permanent pleasure, " which the world cannot 
give nor take away," I hope, and which will outlast the heavens 
and the earth. R. B. 



LXIX. 

TO MR WILLIAM NICOL. 

Auchteettre, Monday, Oct. 1787. 
My dear Sir, — I find myself very comfortable here, neither 
oppressed by ceremony nor mortified by neglect. Lady Augusta 
is a most engaging woman, and very happy in her family, which 
makes one's outgoings and incomings very agreeable. I called at 
Mr Ramsay's of Auchtertyre as I came up the country, and am 
so delighted with him, that I shall certainly accept of his invita- 
tion to spend a day or two with him as I return. I leave this 
place on Wednesday or Thursday. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 39] 



Make my kind compliments to Mr and Mrs Cruikshank, and 
Mrs Nicol, if she has returned. I am ever, dear sir, your deeply 
indebted R. B. 



LXX. 

TO MR WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK. 

Auchteetyee, Monday, Oct. 15, 1787. 
I have nothing, my dear sir. to write to you, but that I feel 
myself exceedingly comfortably situated in this good family— just 
notice enough to make me easy, but not to embarrass me. I was 
storm-staid two days at the foot of the Ochil Hills, with Mr Tait 
of Herveyston and Mr Johnston of Alva ; but was so well pleased 
that I shall certainly spend a day on the banks of the Devon as I 
return. I leave this place I suppose on Wednesday, and shall 
devote a day to Mr Ramsay at Auchtertyre, near Stirling — a man 
to whose worth I cannot do justice. My respectful kind compli- 
ments to Mrs Cruikshank, and my dear little Jeanie ; and if you 
see Mr Masterton, please remember me to him. I am ever, my 
dear sir, &c. R. B. 



LXXI. 

TO MR JAMES HOY, GORDON CASTLE. 

Edekbuegh, 20th October 1787. 

SiR,~ I will defend my conduct in giving you this trouble on 
the best of Christian principles — " Whatsoever ye would that 
men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." 1 shall cer- 
tainly, among my legacies, leave my latest curse to that unlucky 
predicament which hurried — tore me away from Castle-Gordon. 
May that obstinate son of Latin prose [Nicol] be curst to Scotch- 
mile periods, and condemned to seven-league paragraphs ; while 
Declension and Conjugation, Gender, Number, and Tense, under 
the ragged banners of Dissonance and Disarrangement, eternally 
rank against him in hostile array ! 

Allow me, sir, to strengthen the small claim I have to your ac- 
quaintance by the following request : — An engraver, James John- 
son, in Edinburgh, has, not from mercenary views, but from an 
honest Scotch enthusiasm, set about collecting all our native 
songs, and setting them to music, particularly those that have 
never been set before. Clarke, the well-known musician, presides 
over the musical arrangement, and Drs Beattie and Blacklock, 
Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee, and your humble servant to the ut- 
most of his small power, assist in collecting the old poetry, or 
sometimes, for a fine air, make a stanza when it has no words. 



SD9 BURNS' LETTERS. 



The brats, too tedious to mention, claim a parental parig from mjf 
hardship. I suppose it will appear in Johnson's second number — 
the first was published before my acquaintance with him. My re- 
quest is — Cauld Kail in Aberdeen is one intended for this number, 
and I beg a copy of his Grace of Gordon's words to it, which you 
were so kind as to repeat to me. You may be sure we wont pre- 
fix the author's name, except you like ; though I look on it as no 
small merit to this work that the names of so many of the authors 
of our old Scotch songs — names almost forgotten — will be insert- 
ed. I do not well know where to write to you — I rather write at 
you ; but if you will be so obliging immediately on receipt of this, 
as to write me a few lines, I shall perhaps pay you in kind, though 
not in quality. Johnson's terms are : — each number a handsome 
pocket volume, to consist at least of a hundred Scotch songs, with 
basses for the harpsichord, &c. The price to subscribers, 5s. ; to 
non-subscribers, 6s. He will have three numbers I conjecture. 

My direction for two or three weeks will be at Mr William 
Cruikshank's, St James' Square, New Town, Edinburgh. I am, 
sir, yours to command, R. B. 



LXXII. 

TO MR JAMES HOY, GORDON CASTLE. 

Edinburgh, 6th November 1787. 

Dear Sir, — I would have wrote you immediately on receipt of 
your kind letter ; but a mixed impulse of gratitude and esteem 
whispered to me that I ought to send you something by way of 
return. "When a poet owes anything, particularly when he is in- 
debted for good offices, the payment that usually recurs to him — 
the only coin, indeed, in which he is probably conversant — is 
rhyme. Johnson sends the books by the fly, as directed, and begs 
me to enclose his most grateful thanks : my return I intended 
should have been one or two poetic bagatelles which the world 
have not seen, or perhaps, for obvious reasons, cannot see. These 
I shall send you before I leave Edinburgh. They may make you 
laugh a little, which, on the whole, is no bad way of spending 
one's precious hours, and still more precious breath ; at anyrate, 
they will be, though a small, yet a very sincere mark of my re- 
spectful esteem for a gentleman whose farther acquaintance I 
should look upon as a peculiar obligation. 

The Duke's song, independent totally of his dukeship, charms 
me. There is I know not what of wild happiness of thought and 
expression peculiarly beautiful in the old Scottish song style, of 
which his Grace, old venerable Skinner, the author of Tidhchgo- 
rum, &c, and the late Ross, at Lochlee, of true Scottish poetic 
memory, are the only modern instances that I recollect, since Ram 
say, with his contemporaries, and poor Bob Fergusson, went to 



BURNS' LETTERS. 393 



the world of deathless existence and truly immortal song. The 
mob of mankind, that many-headed beast, would laugh at so 
gerious a speech about an old song ; but as Job says, " Oh that 
mine adversary had written a book !" Those who think that 
composing a Scotch song i3 a trifling business, let them try. 

I wish my Lord Duke would pay a proper attention to the 
Christian admonition—" Hide not? your candle under a bushel," 
but " let your light shine before men." I could name half-a- 
dozen dukes that I guess are a great deal worse employed ; nay, 
I question if there are half-a-dozen better ; perhaps there are not 
half that scanty number whom Heaven has favoured with the 
tuneful, happy, and I will say glorious gift. I am, dear sir, your 
obliged humble servant, R. B. 



LXXIII. 
TO MISS CHALMERS. 

Eddtbuegh, Nov. 21, 1787. 

I have one vexatious fault to the kindly welcome, well-filled 
sheet which I owe to your and Charlotte's goodness — it contains 
too much sense, sentiment, and good spelling. It is impossible 
that even you two, whom I will give credit for any degree of ex- 
cellence the sex are capable of attaining — it is impossible you can 
go on to correspond at that rate ; so, like those who, Shenstone 
says, retire because they have made a good speech, I shall, after 
a few letters, hear no more of you. I insist that you shall write 
whatever comes first ; what you see, what you read, what you 
hear, what you admire, what you dislike, — trifles, bagatelles, non- 
sense : or to fill up a corner, e'en put down a laugh at full length. 
Now, none of your polite hints about flattery ; I leave that to your 
lovers, if you have or shall have any ; though, thank Heaven, I 
have found at last two girls who can be luxuriantly happy in 
their own minds and with one another, without that commonly 
necessary appendage to female bliss— a lover. 

Charlotte and you are just two favourite resting-places for my 
soul in her wanderings through the weary, thorny wilderness of 
this world. I am ill-fitted for the struggle ; I glory in being a 
poet, and I want to be thought a wise man — I would fondly be 
generous, and I wish to be rich. After all, I am afraid I am a 
lost subject. " Some folk ha'e a hantle o' fauts, but I'm but a 
ne'er-do-weel." 

Afternoon. — To close the melancholy reflections at the end of 
last sheet, I shall just add a piece of devotion, commonly known 
ui Carrick by the title of the " Wabster's grace :" — 



11 Some say we're thieves, and e'en aae are we, 
Some say we lie, and e'en sae do we !" 



R. i 



891 burns' letters. 



LXXIV. 
TO MTSS CHALMERS. 

My dear Madam, — I just now have read yours. The poetic 
compliments I pay cannot be misunderstood. They are neither 
of them so particular as to point you out to the world at large ; 
and the circle of your acquaintance will allow all I have said. 
Besides, I have complimented you chiefly, almost solely, on your 
mental charms. Shall I be plain with you ? I will : so look to 
it. Personal attractions, madam, you have much above par — wit, 
understanding, and worth, you possess in the first class. This is 
a very flat way of telling you these truths, but let me hear no 
more of your sheepish timidity. I know the world a little. I 
know what they will say of my poems — by second^sight, I suppose 
— for I am seldom out in my conjectures ; and you may believe 
me, my dear madam, I would not run any risk of hurting you by 
any ill-judged compliment. I wish to shew to the world the odds 
between a poet's friends and those of simple prosemen. More for 
your information — both the pieces go in. One of them — Where 
Braving angry Winter's Storms, is already set — the tune is NeU 
Gow's Lamentation for Abercairny ; the other is to be set to an old 
Highland air in Daniel Dow's collection of ancient Scots music ; 
the name is Ha a Chaillich air mo Dlieith. My treacherous 
memory has forgot every circumstance about Les Incas; only I 
think you mentioned them as being in Creech's possession. I 
shall ask him about it. I am afraid the song of Somebody will 
come too late, as I shall for certain leave town in a week for 
Ayrshire, and from that to Dumfries ; but there my hopes are 
slender. I leave my direction in town ; so anything, wherever I 
am, will reach me. 

I saw yours to — ; it is not too severe, nor did he take it 
amiss. On the contrary, like a whipt spaniel, he talks of being 
with you in the Christmas days. Mr has given him the in- 
vitation, and he is determined to accept of it. Oh selfishness ! he 
owns, in his sober moments, that from his own volatility of inclina- 
tion, the circumstances in which he is situated, and his knowledge 
of his father's disposition, the whole affair is chimerical — yet he 
will gratify an idle penchant at the enormous, cruel expense of 
perhaps ruining the peace of the very woman for whom he pro- 
fesses the generous passion of love ! He is a gentleman in his 
mind and manners — tant pis / He is a volatile schoolboy — the 
heir of a man's fortune who well knows the value of two times 
two ! 

Ruin seize them and their fortunes before they should make 
the amiable, the lovely — — , the derided object of their pur3©- 
^roud contempt ! 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



39* 



I am doubly happy to hear of Mrs 's recovery, because I 

really thought all was over with her. There are days of pleasure 
yet awaiting her : — 

" As I came in by Glemap, 
I met with an aged woman; 
She bade me cheer up my heart, 
For the best o' my days was comin'." 

This day will decide my affairs with Creech. Things are, like 
myself, not what they ought to be ; yet better than what they 
appear to be. 

"Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himself— 
That hideous sight— a naked human heart." 

Farewell ! Remember me to Charlotte. 



R. B. 



LXXV. 



TO MR ROBERT ALNSLIE, EDINBURGH. 

Edinbuegh, Sunday Morning, Nov. 23, 17S7 
I beg, my dear sir, you would not make any appointment to 
take us to Mr Ainslie's to-night. On looking over my engage- 
ments, constitution, present state of my health, some little vexa- 
tious soul concerns, &c, I find I can't sup abroad to-night. I 
shall be in to-day till one o'clock, if you have a leisure hour. 

You will think it romantic when I tell you, that I find the idea 
of your friendship almost necessary to my existence. You assume 
a proper length of face in my bitter hours of blue-devilism, and 
you laugh fully up to my highest wishes at my good things. I 
don't know, upon the whole, if you are one of the first fellows in 
God's world, but you are so to me. I tell you this just now, in 
the conviction that some inequalities in my temper and manner 
may perhaps sometimes make you suspect that I am not so warmly 
as I ought to be your friend, R. B. 



LXXVI. 

TO MISS CHALMERS. 

I have been at Dumfries, and at one visit more shall be decided 
alb out a farm in that county. I am rather hopeless in it; but as 
my brother is an excellent farmer, and is, besides, an exceedingly 
prudent, sober man (qualities which are only a younger brother's 
fortune in our family), I am determined, if my Dumfries business 
fail me, to remove into partnership with him, and at our leisure 
take another farm in the neighbourhood, 



896 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



I assure you I look for high compliments from you and Charlotte 
on this very sage instance of my unfathomable, incomprehensible 
wisdom. Talking of Charlotte, I mast tell her that I have, to the 
best of my power, paid her a poetic compliment now completed 
[On a Young Lady, p. 228]. The air is admirable — true old 
Highland. It was the tune of a Gaelic song which an Inverness 
lady sang me when I was there ; I was so charmed with it, that 
I begged her to write me a set of it from her singing, for it had 
never been set before. I am fixed that it shall go in Johnson's 
next number ; so Charlotte and you need not spend your precious 
time in contradicting me. I won't say the poetry is first-rate, 
though I am convinced it is very well ; and what is not always 
the case with compliments to ladies — it is not only sincere, but 
just. R. B. 



LXXVII. 

TO MR GAVIN HAMILTON. 

Edinburgh, December 1787. 
My dear Sir, — It is indeed with the highest pleasure that I 
congratulate you on the return of days of ease and nights of 
pleasure after the horrid hours of misery in which I saw you 
suffering existence when last in Ayrshire. I seldom pray for any- 
body — " I'm baith dead-sweer and wretched ill o't ;" but most 
fervently do I beseech the Power that directs the world, that you 
may live long and be happy, but live no longer than you are 
happy. It is needless for me to advise you to have a reverent 
care of your health. I know you will make it a point never at 
one time to drink more than a pint of wine (I mean an English 
pint), and that you will never bo witness to more than one bowl 
of punch at a time, and that cold drams you will never more 
taste ; and, above all things, I am convinced, that after drinking 
perhaps boiling punch, you will never mount your horse and 
gallop home in a chill late hour. Above all things, as I under- 
stand you are in the habits of intimacy with that Boanerges of 
gospel powers, Father Auld, be earnest with him that he will 
wrestle in prayer for you, that you may see the vanity of vanities 
in trusting to, or even practising, the carnal moral works of 
charity, humanity, generosity, and forgiveness of things, which 
you practised so flagrantly that it was evident you delighted in 
them, neglecting, or perhaps profanely despising, the wholesome 
doctrine of faith without works, the only [means] of salvation. 
A hymn of thanksgiving would, in my opinion, be highly becom- 
ing from you at present ; and in my zeal for your wellbeing, I 
earnestly press on you to be diligent in chanting over the two en- 
closed pieces of sacred poesy. My best compliments to Mrs 
Hamilton and Miss Kennedy. Yours. &c. R. B. 



BURNS' LETTERS. *&7 



LXXVIII. 

TO MISS MABANE. 

Saturday Noon, No. 2 St James's Square, 
New Town, Edinburgh. 

Here have I sat, my dear madam, in the stony altitude of per- 
plexed study for fifteen vexatious minutes, my head askew, bend- 
ing over the intended card ; my fixed eye insensible to the very 
light of day poured around ; my pendulous goose-feather, loaded 
with ink, hanging over the future letter, all for the important 
purpose of writing a complimentary card to accompany your 
trinket. 

Compliment is such a miserable Greenland expression, lies at 
such a chilly polar distance from the torrid zone of my constitu- 
tion, that I cannot, for the very soul of me, use it to any person 
for whom I have the twentieth part of the esteem every one must 
have for you who knows you. 

As I leave town in three or four days, I can give myself the 
pleasure of calling on you only for a minute. Tuesday evening, 
some time about seven or after, I shall wait on you for your fare- 
well commands. ^ 

The hinge of your box I put into the hands of the proper con- 
noisseur. The broken glass likewise went under review ; but 
deliberative wisdom thought it would too much endanger the 
whole fabric. I am, dear madam, with all sincerity of enthusiasm, 
your very obedient servant, R« B» 



LXXIX. 

TO SIR JOHN WH1TEFOORD. 

Edixbukgh, December 1787. 
Sir,— Mr Mackenzie, in Mauchline,.my very warm and worth} 
friend, has informed me how much you are pleased to interest 
yourself in my fate as a man, and (what to me is incomparably 
dearer) my fame as a poet. I have^ sir, in one or two instances, 
been patronised by those of your character in life, when I was in- 
troduced to their notice by * * * * *, friends to them, and 
honoured acquaintances to me ; but you are the first gentleman 
in the country whose benevolence and goodness of heart has in- 
terested himself for me, unsolicited and unknown. I am not 
master enough of the etiquette of these matters to know, nor did 
I stay to inquire, whether formal duty bade, or cold propriety 
disallowed, my thanking you in this manner, as I am convinced, 
from the light in which you kindly view me, that you will do me 
the justice to believe this letter is not the manoeuvre of the needy, 
sharping author, fastening on those in upper life who honour him 



398 BURNS* LETTERS. 



With a little notice of him or his works. Indeed, the situation of 
poets is generally such, to a proverb, as may in some measure 
palliate that prostitution of heart, and talents they have at times 
been guilty of. I do not think prodigality is, by any means, a 
necessary concomitant of a poetic turn, but I believe a careless, 
indolent attention to economy is almost inseparable from it ; then 
there must be in the heart of every bard of Nature's making a 
certain modest sensibility, mixed with a kind of pride, that will 
ever keep him out of the way of those windfalls of fortune which 
frequently light on hardy impudence and foot-licking servility. 
It is not easy to imagine a more helpless state than his whose 
poetic fancy unfits him for the world, and whose character as a 
scholar gives him some pretensions to the politesse of life— yet is 
as poor as I am. 

For my part, I thank Heaven my star has been kinder ; learning 
never elevated my ideas above the peasant's shed, and I have an 
independent fortune at the plough-tail. 

I was surprised to hear that any one who pretended in the least 
to the manners of the gentleman should be so foolish, or worse, 
as to stoop to traduce the morals of such a one as I am, and so 
unhumanly cruel, too, as to meddle with that late most unfortunate, 
unhappy part of my story. With a tear of gratitude, I thank you, 
sir, for the warmth with which you interposed in behalf of my 
conduct. I am, I acknowledge, too frequently the sport of whim, 
caprice, and passion ; but reverence to God, and integrity to my 
fellow-creatures, I hope I shall ever preserve. I have no return 
sir, to make you for your goodness but one — a return which, I am 
persuaded, will not be unacceptable — the honest, warm wishes of 
a grateful heart for your happiness, and every one of that lovely 
flock who stand to you in a filial relation. If ever calumny aim 
the poisoned shaft at them, may friendship be by to ward the blow ! 

R.B. 



LXXX. 

TO MRS M'LEHOSE (CLARINDA). 

Thursday Evening [Dec. 6, 1787]. 

Madam, — I had set no small store by my tea-drinking to-night, 
and have not often been so disappointed. Saturday evening I shall 
embrace the opportunity with the greatest pleasure. I leave town 
this day se'nnight, and probably for a couple of twelvemonths ; 
. but must ever regret that I so lately got an acquaintance I shall 
ever highly esteem, and in whose welfare I shall ever be warmly 
interested. 

Our worthy common friend, in her usual pleasant way, rallied 
me a good deal on my new acquaintance, and in the humour of 



BURNS' LETTERS. 398 



her ideas I wrote some lines, which I enclose you, as I think they 
have a good deal of poetic merit ; and Miss Nimino tells me you 
are not only a critic, but a poetess. Fiction you know is the native 
region of poetry ; and I hope you will pardon my vanity in sending 
you the bagatelle as a tolerable off-hand jeu d'esprit, I have 
several poetic trifles, which I shall gladly leave with Miss Nimmo 
or you, if they were worth house-room ; as there are scarcely two 
people on earth by whom it would mortify me more to be forgotten, 
though at the distance of nine score miles. I am, madam, with the 
highest respect, your very humble servant, Robert Burns. 



LXXXI. 

TO MRS M'LEHOSE. 

Saturday Even. [Dec. 8.] 
I can say with truth, madam, that I never met with a person in 
my life whom I more anxiously wished to meet again than yourself. 
To-night I was to have had that very great pleasure — I was in- 
toxicated with the idea ; but an unlucky fall from a coach has so 
bruised one of my knees that I can't stir my leg off the cushion. 
So, if I don't see you again, I shall not rest in my grave for chagrin. 
I was vexed to the soul I had not seen you sooner. I determined to 
cultivate your friendship with the enthusiasm of religion ; but thus 
has Fortune ever served me. I cannot bear the idea of leaving 
Edinburgh without seeing you. I know not how to account for it 
— I am strangely taken with some people, nor am I often mistaken. 
You are a stranger to me ; but I am an odd being. Some yet 
unnamed feelings — things, not principles, but better than whims 
— carry me farther than boasted reason ever did a philosopher. 
Farewell ! Every happiness be yours. Robert Burns. 



LXXXII. 

TO MRS M'LEHOSE. 

[Dec. 12.] 

I stretch a point, indeed, my dearest madam, when I answer 
your card on the rack of my present agony. Your friendship, 
madam ! By heavens, I was never proud before. Your lines, I 
maintain it, are poetry, and good poetry ; mine were indeed 
partly fiction and partly a friendship which, had I been so blest 
as to have met with you in time, might have led me — none knows 
where. Time is too short for ceremonies. 

I swear solemnly (in all the tenor of my former oath) to remem- 
ber you in all the pride and warmth of friendship until — T cease 
to be ! 



too burns' letters. 

To-morrow, and every day till I see you, you shall hear from 
me. 

Farewell ! May you enjoy a better night's repose than I am 
likely to have. R. B. 



LXXXIII. 
TO MRS M'LEHOSE. 

[Dec. 20.] 

Your last, my dear madam, had the effect on me that Job's 
situation had on his Mends when " they sat down seven days and 
seven nights astonied, and spake not a word/''—" Pay my addresses 
to a married woman !" I started as if I had seen the ghost of him 
I had injured : I recollected my expressions ; some of them indeed 
were, in the law phrase, " habit and repute," which is being half 
guilty. I cannot positively say, madam, whether my heart might 
not have gone astray a little ; but I can declare upon the honour 
of a poet, that the vagrant has wandered unknown to me. I have 
a pretty handsome troop of follies of my own ; and, like some 
other people's retinue, they are but undisciplined blackguards : 
but the luckless rascals have .*■ mething of honour in them : they 
would not do a dishonest thing 

To meet with an unfortunate woman, amiable and young, de- 
serted and widowed by those who were bound by every tie of duty, 
nature, and gratitude, to protect, comfort, and cherish her ; add to 
all, when she is perhaps one of the first of lovely forms and noble 
minds, the mind, too, that hits one's taste as the joys of heaven do 
a saint — should a vague infant idea, the natural child of imagi- 
nation, thoughtlessly peep over the fence — were you, my friend, to 
sit in judgment, and the poor airy straggler brought before you, 
trembling, self-condemned, with artless eyes, brimful of contrition^ 
looking wistfully on its judge, you could not, my dear madam, 
condemn the hapless wretch to death " without benefit of clergy ?" 

I won't tell you what reply my heart made to your raillery of 
* seven years ;" but I will give you what a brother of my trade 
says on the same allusion : — 

u The Patriarch to gain a wife, 
Chaste, beautiful, and young, 
Served fourteen years a painful life 
And never thought it long. 
Oh were you to reward sucfc. cares. 
And life so long would stay, 
Not fourteen but four hundred years 
Would seem but as one day !" 

I have written you this scrawl because I have nothing else to 
do, and you may sit down and find fault with it, if you have no 
better way of consuming your time ; but finding fault with the 
vagaries of a poet's fancy is much such another business as Xerxes 
chastising the waves of the Hellespont.. 



BURNS' letters. 



My limb now allows me to sit in some peace : to walk I have 
yet no prospect of, as I can't mark it to the ground. 

• I have just now looked over what I have written, and it is such 
a chaos of nonsense that I daresay you will throw it into the fire, 
and call me an idle, stupid fellow ; but whatever you think of my 
brains, believe me to be, with the most sacred respect and heartfelt 
esteem, my dear madam, your humble servant, 

Robert Burns* 



LXXXIV. 
TO MISS CHALMERS. 

Edinburgh, Dec. 12, 1787. 

I AM here under the care of a surgeon, with a bruised limb 
extended on a cushion ; and the tints of my mind vying with the 
livid horror preceding a midnight thunder-storm. A drunken 
coachman was the cause of the first, and incomparably the 
lightest evil ; misfortune, bodily constitution, evil, and myself, 
have formed a " quadruple alliance " to guarantee the other. I 
got my fall on Saturday, and am getting slowly better. 

I have taken tooth and nail to the Bible, and am got through 
the five books of Moses, and half-way in Joshua. It is really a 
glorious book. I sent for my bookbinder to-day, and ordered 
him to get me an octavo Bible in sheets, the best paper and print 
in town, and bind it with all the elegance of his craft. 

I would give my best song to my worst enemy — I mean the 
merit of making it — to have you and Charlotte by me. You are 
angelic creatures, and would pour wine and oil into my wounded 
spirit. 

I enclose you a proof copy of the Banks of the Devon, (p. 228), 
which present, with my best wishes, to Charlotte. The Ochil Hills 
{Where Braving, p. 228) you shall probably have next week for 
yourself None of your fine speeches ! R. B, 



LXXXV. 

TO CHARLES HAY, ESQ., ADVOCATE. 

(Enclosing verses on the death of the Lord President, p. 126.) 

1787. 
Sir, — The enclosed poem was written in consequence of your 
suggestion last time I had the pleasure of seeing you. It cost 
me an hour or two of next morning's sleep, but did not please 
me ; so it lay by an ill-digested effort, till the other day that I 
gave it a critic brush. These kind of subjects are much hack- 
neyed ; and, besides, the wailings of the rhyming tribe over the 



#02 BURNS' LETTERS. 



ashes of the great are cursedly suspicious, and out of all character 
for sincerity. These ideas damped my Muse's fire ; however, I 
have done the best I could ; and, at all events, it gives me an 
opportunity of declaring that I have the honour to be, sir, your 
obliged humble servant, R. B. 



LXXXVI. 
TO MISS CHALMERS. 

Edinburgh, 19th Dec. 1787. 

I begin this letter in answer to yours of the 17th current, 
which is not yet cold since I read it. The atmosphere of my 
soul is vastly clearer than when I wrote you last. For the first 
time yesterday I crossed the room on crutches. It would do your 
heart good to see my hardship, not on my poetic, but on my 
oaken stilts ; throwing my best leg with an air ! and with ai 
much hilarity in my gait and countenance as a May frog leaping 
across the newly-harrowed ridge, enjoying the fragrance of the 
refreshed earth after the long-expected shower ! 

I can't say I am altogether at my ease when I see anywhere in 
my path that meagre, squalid, famine-faced spectre — Poverty, 
attended as he always is by iron-fisted Oppression and leering 
Contempt ; but I have sturdily withstood his bufferings many a 
hard-laboured day already, and still my motto is — / dare / My 
worst enemy is moi mime. I lie so miserably open to the inroads 
and incursions of a mischievous, light-armed, well-mounted ban- 
ditti, under the banners of Imagination, Whim, Caprice, and Pas- 
sion ; and the heavy-armed veteran regulars of Wisdom, Prudence, 
and Forethought move so very, very slow, that I am almost in a 
state of perpetual warfare, and alas I frequent defeat. There are 
just two creatures I would envy— a horse in his wild state tra- 
versing the forests of Asia, or an oyster on some of the desert 
shores of Europe. The one has not a wish without enjoyment, 
the other has neither wish nor fear. R. B. 



LXXXVII. 
TO CLARINDA.* 

Friday Evening [21st Dec] 
I beg your pardon, my dear * Clarinda," for the fragment 
scrawl I sent you } T esterday. I really do not know what I wrote. 
A gentleman for whose character, abilities, and critical know- 
ledge I have the highest veneration, called in just as I had begun 
the second sentence, and I would not make the porter wait. I 

* It was now arranged that for the future Burns and Mrs M'Lehose should siff» 
tLc!r epistles respectively as Sylvander and Clarinda. 



BURNS" LETTERS. 405 



read to iny much-respected friend several of my own bagatelles, 
and, among others, your lines, which I had copied out. He began 
eome criticisms on them, as on the other pieces, when I informed 
him they were the work of a young lady in this town, which, ] 
assure you, made him stare. My learned friend seriously pro- 
tested that he did not believe any young woman in Edinburgh 
was capable of such lines ; and if you know anything of Pro- 
fessor Gregory, you will neither doubt of his abilities nor his 
sincerity. I do love you, if possible, still better for having so fine 
a taste and turn for poesy. I have again gone wrong in my 
usual unguarded way, but you may erase the word, and put 
esteem, respect, or any other tame Dutch expression you please 
in its place. I believe there is no holding converse, or carrying 
on correspondence with an amiable woman, much less a gloriously 
amiable fine woman, without some mixture of that delicious pas- 
sion whose most devoted slave I have more than once had the 
honour of being. But why be hurt or offended on that account ? 
Can no honest man have a prepossession for a fine woman, but he 
must run his head against an intrigue ? Take a little of the 
tender witchcraft of love, and add it to the generous, the honour- 
able sentiments of manly friendship, and I know but one more 
delightful morsel which few, few in any rank ever taste. Such a 
composition is like adding cream to strawberries : it not only 
gives the fruit a more elegant richness, but has a peculiar deli- 
ciousness of its own. 

I enclose you a few lines I composed on a late melancholy occa 
sion. I will not give above five or six copies of it at all, and I 
would be hurt if any friend should give any copies without my 
consent. 

You cannot imagine, Clarinda (I like the idea of Arcadian 
names in a commerce of this kind), how much store I have set by 
the hopes of your future friendship. I do not know if you have a 
just idea of my character, but I wish you to see me as I am. T 
am, as most people of my trade are, a strange Will-o'-Wisp 
being ; the victim too frequently of much imprudence and many 
follies. My great constituent elements are pride and passion. 
The first I have endeavoured to humanize into integrity and 
honour ; the last makes me a devotee to the warmest degree of 
enthusiasm in love, religion, or friendship — either of them, or all 
together, as I happen to be inspired. 'Tis true I never saw you 
but once ; but how much acquaintance did I form of you in that 
once ! Do not think I flatter you, or have a design upon you, 
Clarinda : I have too much pride for the one, and too little cold 
contrivance for the other ; but of all God's creatures I ever could 
approach in the beaten way of my acquaintance, you struck me 
with the deepest, the strongest, the most permanent impression. 
T soy the most permanent, because I know myself well, and how 



2 c 



burns' letters. 



far I can promise either in my prepossessions or powers. Whj 
are you unhappy ? And why are so many of our fellow-creatureg 
— unworthy to belong to the same species with you — blest with 
all they can wish ? You have a hand all benevolent to give : why 
were you denied the pleasure ? You have a heart formed — 
gloriously formed — for all the most refined luxuries of love : why 
was that heart ever wrung ? Oh Clarinda ! shall we not meet in a 
state, some yet unknown state of being, where the lavish hand oi 
plenty shall minister to the highest wish of benevolence, and 
where the chill north wind of prudence shall never blow over the 
flowery fields of enjoyment? If we do not, man was made in 
vain ! I deserved most of the unhappy hours that have lingered 
over my head ; they were the wages of my labour : but what un- 
provoked demon, malignant as hell, stole upon the confidence of 
unmistrusting busy fate, and dashed your cup of life with unde- 
served sorrow ? 

Let me know how long your stay will be out of town ; I shall 
count the hours till you inform me of your return. Etiquette for- 
bids your seeing me just now ; and so soon as I can walk I 
must bid Edinburgh adieu. Why was I born to see misery which 
I cannot relieve, and to meet with friends whom I cannot enjoy ? 
I look back with the pang of unavailing avarice on my loss in 
not knowing you sooner : all last winter, these three months past, 
what luxury of intercourse have I not lost! Perhaps, though, 
'twas better for my peace. You see I am either above or inca- 
pable of dissimulation. I believe it is want of that particular 
genius. 1 despise design, because I want either coolness or wis- 
dom to be capable of it. I am interrupted. Adieu ! my dear 
Clarinda! Sylvan der. 



LXXXVIII. 
TO CLARINDA. 

My dear Clarinda, — Your last verses have so delighted me 
that I have copied them in among some of my own most valued 
pieces, which I keep sacred for my own use. Do let me have a 
few now and then. 

Did you, madam, know what I feel when you talk of your sor- 
rows ! 

Alas ! that one who has so much worth in the sight of heaven, 
and is so amiable to her fellow-creatures, should be so unhappy . 
I can't venture out for cold. My limb is vastly better; but I 
have not any use of it without my crutches. Monday, for the 
first time, I dine in a neighbour's, next door. As soon as I can 
go so far, even in a coach, my first visit shall be to you. Write 
me when you leave town, and immediately when you return ; and 



BURNS' LETTERS. 4 05 



1 earnestly pray your stay may be short. l 7 ou can't imagine now 
miserable you made me when you hinted to me not to writer 
Farewell, Sylvander. 



LXXX1X. 
TO MR RICHARD BROWN, IRVINE. 

Edinburgh, 30th Dec. 1787. 

My Dear Sir, — I have met with few things in life which have 
given me more pleasure than Fortune's kindness to you since those 
days in which we met in the vale of misery ; as I can honestly 
say that I never knew a man who more truly deserved it, or to 
whom my heart more truly wished it. I have been much indebted 
since that time to your story and sentiments for steeling my mind 
against evils, of which I have had a pretty decent share. My 
Will-o'-Wisp fate you know ; do you recollect a Sunday we spent 
together in Eglinton woods ? You told me, on my repeating some 
verses to you, that you wondered I could resist the temptation of 
sending verses of such merit to a magazine. It was from this re- 
mark I derived that idea of my own pieces which encouraged me 
to endeavour at the character of a poet. I am happy to hear that 
you will be two or three months at home. As soon as a bruised limb 
will permit me, I shall return to Ayrshire, and we shall meet ; 
* and faith I hope we'll not sit <?umb, nor yet east out !" 

I have much to tell you " of men, their manners, and their 
ways ;" perhaps a little of the other sex. Apropos, I beg to be 
remembered to Mrs Brown. There, I doubt not, my dear friend, 
but you have found substantial happiness. I expect to find you 
something of an altered, but not a different man ; the wild, bold, 
generous young fellow composed into the steady affectionate hus- 
band, and the fond, careful parent. For me, I am just the same 
Will-o'-Wisp being I used to be. About the first and fourth 
quarters of the moon I generally set in for the trade wind of 
Wisdom ; but about the full and change I am the luckless victim 
of mad tornadoes, which blow me into chaos. All-mighty love 
still reigns and revels in my bosom ; and I am at this moment 
ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow, who has wit 
and 5 wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto 
of the Sicilian bandit, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African. 
My Highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, I have 
gravely removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which a 
cannot command, in case of spring-tide paroxysms. You may 
guess of her wit by the following verses, which she sent me the 
other day. * * * 

My best compliments to our friend Allan. Adieu ! R. B. 



40« burns' letters. 



TO CLARINDA. 

[After New Year, 1788.] 
You are right, my dear Clarinda : a friendly correspondence 
goes for nothing, except one write their undisguised sentiments. 
Yours please me for their intrinsic merit, as well as because they 
are yours, which, I assure you, is to me a high recommendation. 
Your religious sentiments, madam, I revere. If you have, on 
some suspicious evidence from some lying oracle, learned that I 
despise or ridicule so sacredly important a matter as real religion, 
you have, my Clarinda, much misconstrued your friend — " I am 
not mad, most noble Festus !" Have you ever met a perfect cha- 
racter? Do we not sometimes rather exchange faults than get 
rid of them ? For instance, I am perhaps tired with, and shocked 
at a life too much the prey of giddy inconsistencies and thought- 
less follies ; by degrees I grow sober, prudent, and statedly pious 
— I say statedly, because the most unaffected devotion is not at 
all inconsistent with my first character — I join the world in con- 
gratulating myself on the happy change. But let me pry more 
narrowly into this affair. Have I, at bottom, anything of a 
secret pride in these endowments and emendations ? Have I 
nothing of a Presbyterian sourness, a hypocritical severity, when 
I survey my less regular neighbours ? In a word, have I missed 
all those nameless and numberless modifications of indistinct 
selfishness, which are so near our own eyes that we can scarcely 
bring them wichin the sphere of our vision, and which the known 
spotless cambric of our character hides from the ordinary ob- 
server ! 

My definition of worth is short : truth and humanity respecting 
our fellow-creatures ; reverence and humility in the presence of 
that Being, my Creator and Preserver, and who, I have every 
reason to believe, will one day be my Judge. The first part of 
my definition is the creature of unbiassed instinct ; the last is the 
ehild of after-reflection. Where I found these two essentials, I 
would gently note, and slightly mention, any attendant flaws — 
flaws, the marks, the consequences of human nature. 

I can easily enter into the sublime pleasures that your strong 
imagination and keen sensibility must derive from religion, parti- 
cularly if a little in the shade of misfortune ; but I own I cannot, 
without a marked grudge, see Heaven totally engross so amiable, 
so charming a woman, as my friend Clarinda ; and should be very 
well pleased at a circumstance that would put it in the power of 
somebody (happy somebody !) to divide her attention, with all 
the delicacy and tenderness of an earthly attachment. 

You will not easily persuade me that you have not a grammati 
cal knowledge of the English language. So far from being in- 



BURNS' LETTERS. 407 



accurate, you are elegaut beyond any woman of my acquaintance, 
except one, whom I wish you knew. 

Your last verses to me have so delighted me, that I have got 
an excellent old Scots air that suits the measure, and you shall 
see them in print in the Scots Musical Museum, a work publishing 
by a friend of mine in this town. I want four stanzas ; you gave 
me but three, and one of them alluded to an expression in my for- 
mer letter ; so I have taken your two first verses, with a slight al- 
teration in the second, and have added a third ; but you must 
help me to a fourth. Here they are : the latter half of the first 
stanza would have been worthy of Sappho; I am in raptures 
with it. 

" Talk not cf Love, it gives me pain, 
For Love has been my foe: 
He bound me with an iron chain, 
* And sunk me deep in woe. 

But Friendship's pure and lasting joys 

My heart was formed to prove : 
There, welcome, win and wear the prise, 

But never talk of Love." 

Your friendship much can make me blest, 
why that bless destroy! 
(only) 
Why urge the odious one request, 
(will) 
You know I must deny. 

The alteration in the second stanza is no improvement, but 
there was a slight inaccuracy in your rhyme. The third I only 
offer to your choice, and have left two words for your determina- 
tion. The air is " The Banks of Spey," and is most beautiful. 
■ To-morrow evening I intend taking a chair, and paying a visit 
at Park Place to a much-valued old friend. If I could be sure of 
finding you at home (and I will send one of the chairmen to call), 
I would spend from five to six o'clock with you as I go past. I 
cannot do more at this time, as I have something on my hand 
that hurries me much. I propose giving you the first call, my old 
friend the second, and Miss — — , as I return home. Do not break 
any engagement for me, as I will spend another evening with you 
at any rate before I leave town. 

Do not tell me that you are pleased when your friends inform 
you of your faults. I am ignorant what they are ; but I am sure 
they must be such evanescent trifles, compared with your per- 
sonal and mental accomplishments, that I would despise the un- 
generous, narrow soul who would notice any shadow of imperfec- 
tions you may seem to have any other way than in the most deli- 
cate agreeable raillery. Coarse minds are not aware how much 
they injure the keenly-feeling tie of bosom-friendship, when, in 
their foolish ofliciousness, they mention what nobody cares for re- 
collecting. People of nice sensibility and generous minds have a 



408 BURNS' LETTERS. 



certain intrinsic dignity that fires at being trifled with, or lower* 
ed, or even too nearly approached. 

You need make no apology for long letters : I am even with 
you. Many happy new-years to you, charming Clarinda ! I can't 
dissemble were it to shun perdition. He who sees you as I have 
done, and does not love you, deserves to be hanged for his stu- 
pidity I Ho who loves you, and would injure you, deserves to be 
doubly hanged for his villany 1 Adieu. Sylvander. 



XCI. 
TO CLARINDA. 
Some days, some nights, nay, some hours, like the " ten right- 
eous persons in Sodom," save the rest of the vapi^ tiresome, 
miserable months and years of life. One of these hours my dear 
Clarinda blest me with yesternight : — 

11 One vrell-spent hour, 
In such a tender circumstance for friends, 
Is better than an age of common time !" Thomsox. 

My favourite feature in Milton's Satan is his manly fortitude 
in supporting what cannot be remedied — in short, the wild, broken 
fragments of a noble exalted mind in ruins. I meant no more by 
saying he was a favourite hero of mine. 

I mentioned to you my letter to Dr Moore, giving an account 
of my life : it is truth, every word of it, and will give you the just 
idea of a man whom you have honoured with your friendship. I 
am afraid you will hardly be able to make sense of so torn a piece. 
Tour verses I shall muse on, deliciously, as I gaze on your image 
in my mind's eye, in my heart's core : they will be in time enough 
for a week to come. I am truly happy your headache is better. 
— Oh, how can pain or evil be so daringly, unfeelingly, cruelly 
savage as to wound so noble a mind, so lovely a form ! 

My little fellow is all my namesake. AVrite me soon. My 
every, strongest good wishes attend you, Clarinda ! 

Sylvander. 

I know not what I have written — I am pestered with people 
around me. 



XCII. 
TO CLARINDA. 

Tuesday Night [Jan. 8 ?] 
I AM delighted, charming Clarinda, with your honest enthu- 
siasm for religion. Those of either sex, but particularly the female, 
who are lukewarm in that most important of all things, " my 
soul, come not thou into their secrets !" I feel myself deeply in* 



burns' letters. 



terested in your good opinion, and will lay before you the outlines 
of my belief. He who is our Author and Preserver, and will one 
day be our Judge, must be (not for his sake in the way of duty, 
but from the native impulse of our hearts) the object of our reve* 
rential awe and grateful adoration : He is almighty and all-boun- 
teous, we are weak and dependent ; hence prayer and every other 

sort of devotion. " He is not willing that any should perish, but 

that all should come to everlasting life ;" consequently it must be in 
every one's power to embrace his offer of " everlasting life;" other- 
wise he could not, in justice, condemn those who did not. A mind 
pervaded, actuated, and governed by purity, truth, and charity, 
though it does not merit heaven, yet is an absolutely necessary 
pre-requisite, without which heaven can neither be obtained nor 
enjoyed ; and, by Divine promise, such a mind shall never fail of 
attaining " everlasting life :" hence the impure, the deceiving, 
and the uncharitable extrude themselves from eternal bliss by 
their unfitness for enjoying it. The Supreme Being has put the 
immediate administration of all this, for wise and good ends known 
to himself, into the hands of Jesus Christ — a great personage, 
whose relation to Him we cannot comprehend, but whose relation 
to us is [that of] a Guide and Saviour : and who, except for our 
own obstinacy and misconduct, will bring us all, through various 
Ways, and by various means, to bliss at last. 

These are my tenets, my lovely friend ; and which, I think, 
cannot be well disputed. My creed is pretty nearly expressed in 
the last clause of Jamie Deans' grace, an honest weaver in Ayr- 
shire : " Lord, grant that we may lead a gude life ! for a gude 
life maks a gude end ; at least it helps weel !" 

I am flattered by the entertainment you tell me you have found 
in my packet. You see me as I have been, you know me as I am, 
and may guess at what I am likely to be. I too may say, " Talk 
not of love," &c, for indeed he has " plunged me deep in wo !" 
Not that I ever saw a woman who pleased unexceptionably, as 
my Clarinda elegantly says, " in the companion, the friend, and 
the mistress." One indeed I could accept — One y before passion 
threw its mists over my discernment, I knew the first of women ! 
Her name is indelibly written in my heart's core— but I dare not 
look in on it — a degree of agony would be the consequence. Oh ! 
thou perfidious, cruel, mischief-making demon, who presidest over 
that frantic passion — thou mayst, thou dost, poison my peace, but 
thou shalt not taint my honour. I would not, for a single moment } 
give an asylum to the most distant imagination that would shadow 
the faintest outline of a selfish gratification, at the expense of her 
whose happiness is twisted with the threads of my existence.— — - 
May she be as happy as she deserves ! And if my tenderest, 
faithfulest friendship can add to her bliss, I shall at least have one 
solid mine of enjoyment in my bosom ! DonH guess at these ravings / 



♦ 10 BURNS" LETTERS. 



I watched at our front window to-day, but was disappointed. 
It has been a day of disappointments. I am just risen after a two 
hours' bout after supper with silly or sordid souls, who could relish 

nothing in common with me but the port. One. 'Tis now 

" witching time of night ;" and whatever is out of joint in the fore- 
going scrawl impute it to enchantments and spells ; for I can't 
look over it, but will seal it up directly, as I don't care for to- 
morrow's criticisms on it. 

You are by this time fast asleep, Clarinda ; may good angels 
attend and guard you as constantly and faithfully as my good 
wishes do. 

" Beauty, -which, whether waking or asleep, 
Shot forth peculiar graces. '' 

John Milton, I wish thy soul better rest than I expect on my 
pillow to-night 1 Oh for a little of the cart-horse part of human 
nature ! Good-night, my dearest Clarinda 1 

Sylvander. 



XCIII. 
TO CLARINDA. 

Thursday Noon [Jan. 10 ?J 
I am certain I saw you, Clarinda ; but you don't look to the 
proper storey for a poet's lodging, 

"Where Speculation roosted near the sky." 

I could almost have thrown myself over for very vexation. Why 
did'nt you look higher ? It has spoilt my peace for this day. To 
be so near my charming Clarinda ; to miss her look while it was 
searching for me. I am sure the soul is capable of disease, for 
mine has convulsed itself into an inflammatory fever. I am sorry 
for your little boy : do let me know to-morrow how he is. 

You have converted me, Clarinda (I shall love that name while 
I live : there is heavenly music in it !) Booth and Amelia I know 
well. Your sentiments on that subject, as they are on every sub- 
ject, are just and noble. " To be feelingly alive to kindness and to 
unkindness" is a charming female character. 

What I said in my last letter, the powers of fuddling sociality 
only know for me. By yours I understand my good star has 
been partly in my horizon when I got wild in my reveries. Had 
that evil planet, which has almost all my life shed its baleful rays 
on my devoted head, been as usual in its zenith, I had certainly 
blabbed something that would have pointed out to you the dear 
object of my tenderest friendship, and, in spite of me, something 
more. Had that fatal information escaped me, and it was merely 
chance or kind stars that it did not, I had been undone! You 



BURISS' LETTERS. 411 



would never have written ine, except, perhaps, once more ! Oh, I 
could curse circumstances ! and the coarse tie of human lawg 
which keeps fast what common sense would loose, and which bars 
that happiness itself cannot give — happiness which otherwise love 
and honour would warrant ! But hold — I shall make no more 
"hairbreadth 'scapes." 

My friendship, Clarinda, is a liferent business. My likings are 
both strong and eternal. I told you I had but one male friend : 
I have but two female. I should have a third, but she is sur- 
rounded by the blandishments of flattery and courtship. Her I 
register in my heart's core by Peggy Chalmers : Miss Nimmo can 
tell you how divine she is. She is worthy of a place in the same 
bosom with my Clarinda. That is the highest compliment I can 
pay her. Farewell, Clarinda I Remember Sylyander. 



XCIT. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Saturday Morning. 

Your thoughts on religion, Clarinda, shall be welcome. You 
may perhaps distrust me when I say 'tis also my favourite topic ; 
but mine is the religion of the bosom. I hate the very idea of a 
controversial divinity ; as I firmly believe that every honest, 
upright man, of whatever sect, will be accepted of the Deity. If 
your verses, as you seem to hint, contain censure, except you want 
an occasion to break with me, don't send them. I have a little 
infirmity in my disposition, that where I fondly love, or highly 
esteem, I cannot bear reproach. 

" Reverence thyself" is a sacred maxim, and I wish to cherish 
it. I think I told you Lord Bolingbroke's saying to Swift — "Adieu, 
dear Swift, with all thy faults I love thee entirely ; make an effort 
to love me with all mine." A glorious sentiment, and without 
which there can be no friendship ! I do highly, very highly esteem 
you indeed, Clarinda — you merit it all ! Perhaps, too, I scorn 
dissimulation ! I could fondly love you : judge, then, what a 
maddening sting your reproach would be. " Oh ! I have sins to 
Heaven, but none to you!" With what pleasure would I meet 
you to-day, but I cannot walk to meet the Ply. I hope to be able 
to see you on foot, about the middle of next week. 

I am interrupted — perhaps you are not sorry for it, you will tell 
me — but I won't anticipate blame. Oh Clarinda ! did you know 
hc»w dear to me is your look of kindness, your smile of approba- 
tion ! you would not, either in prose or verse, risk a censorious 
remark. 

M Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, 
That tends to make one worthy man my foe ! '' 

Sylyander. 



412 burns' lettehs. 



xcv. 

TO CLAR1JSDA. 

You talk of weeping, Clarinda : seme involuntary drops wet 
your lines as I read them. Offend me, my dearest angel ! You 
cannot offend me — you never offended me. If you had ever given 
me the least shadow of offence, so pardon me my God as I forgive 
Clarinda. I have read yours again; it has blotted my paper. 
Though I find your letter has agitated me into a violent headache, 
I shall take a chair, and be with you about eight. A friend is to 
be with us at tea, on my account, which hinders me from coming 
sooner. Forgive, my dearest Clarinda, my unguarded expres- 
sions ! For Heaven's sake, forgive me, or I shall never be able to 
bear my own mind !— Your unhappy Sylvander. 



XCVI. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Monday Even., .11 o'clock. 
Why have I not heard from you, Clarinda ? To-day I expected 
it ; and before supper, when a letter to me was announced, my 
heart danced with rapture : but behold, 'twas some fool who had 
taken it into his head to turn poet, and made me an offering of 
the first-fruits of his nonsense. " It is not poetry, but prose run 
mad." Did I ever repeat to you an epigram I made on Mr 
Elphinstone, who has given a translation of Martial, a famous 
Latin poet ? The poetry of Elphinstone can only equal his prose 
notes. I was sitting in a merchant's shop of my acquaintance, 
waiting somebody ; he put Elphinstone into my hand, and asked 
my opinion of it ; I begged leave to write it on a blank leaf, which 
I did— 

TO MR ELPHINSTOXE, &C. 

Oh thou/whom Poesy abhors! 
Whom Prose has turned cut of doors ! 
Heard'st thou yon groan ? proceed no further ! 
'Twas laurel'd Martial calling murther ! 

I am determined to see you, if at all possible, on Saturday even- 
ing. Next week I must sing — 

The night is my departing night. 

The morn's the day I maun awa ; 
There's neither friend nor foe o' mine 

But wishes that I were awa! v 

What I hae done for lack o' wit, 

I never, never can reca' ; 
I hope ye're a* my friends as yet— 

Gude night, and joy be wi' you a' ! 

If I could see you sooner, I would be so much the happier ; hni 



BURNS' LETTERS. 413 



I would not purchase the dearest gratification on earth, if it must 
be at your expense in worldly censure, far less inward peace ! 

I shall certainly be ashamed of thus scrawling whole sheets of 
incoherence. The only unity (a sad word with poets and critics !) 
in my ideas is Clarinda. There my heart " reigns and revels !" 

M What art thou love ? whence are those charms, 

That thus thou bear'st an universal rule ? 
For thee the soldier quits his arms, 

The king turns slave, the "wise man fool. 
In vain we chase thee from the field, 

And with cool thoughts resist thy yoke : 
Next tide of blood, alas ! we yield, 

And all those high resolves are broke !" 

I like to have quotations for every occasion. They give one's 
ideas so pat, and save one the trouble of finding expression ade- 
quate to one's feelings. I think it is one of the greatest pleasures 
attending a poetic genius that we can give our woes, cares, joys, 
loves, &c, an embodied form in verse, which to me is ever imme- 
diate ease. Goldsmith says finely of his Muse — 

" Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe; 
Thou found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so." 

My limb has been so well to-day that I have gone up and down 
stairs often without my staff. To-morrow I hope to walk once 
again on my own legs to dinner. It is only next street. Adieu. 

Sylvander. 



XCVII. 
TO CLARINDA. 

Tuesday Evening [Jan, 15]. 

That you have faults, my Clarinda, I never doubted ; but I 
' knew not where they existed, and Saturday night made me more 
in the dark than ever. Oh Clarinda ! why will you wound my 
soul by hinting that last night must have lessened my opinion of 
you ? True I was " behind the scenes" with you ; but what did 
I see ? A bosom glowing with honour and benevolence ; a mind 
ennobled by genius, informed and refined by education and reflec- 
tion, and exalted by native religion, genuine as in the climes of 
heaven ; a heart formed for all the glorious meltings of friendship, 
love, and pity. These I saw : I saw the noblest immortal soul 
creation ever showed me. 

I looked long, my dear Clarinda, for your letter ; and am vexed 
that you are complaining. I have not caught you so far wrong 
as in your idea that the commerce you have with one friend hurts 
you if you cannot tell every tittle of it to another. Why have so 
injurious a suspicion of a good God, Clarinda, as to think that 
Friendship and Love, on the sacred inviolate principles of Truth 
Honour, and Religion, can be anything else than an object of His 
divine approbation ? 



414 BURNS LETTERS. 



I have mentioned, in some of my former scrawls, Saturday 
evening next. Do allow me to wait on you that evening. Oh, 
my angel ! how soon must we part ! and when can we meet again ? 
I looked forward on the horrid interval with tearful eyes 1 What 
have I lost by not knowing you sooner ! I fear, I fear my ac- 
quaintance with you is too short to make that lasting impression 
on your heart I could wish. Sylvander. 



XCVIII. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Sunday Night [Jan. 20?] 
The impertinence of fools has joined with the return of an old 
indisposition to make me good for nothing to-day. The paper has 
lain before me all this evening to write to my dear Clarinda ; but 

k< Fools rushed on fools, as waves succeed to waves." 

I cursed them in my soul : they sacrilegiously disturb my medi- 
tations on her who holds my heart 1 What a creature is man ! 
A little alarm last night and to-day that I am mortal has made 
such a revolution in my spirits ! There is no philosophy, no di- 
vinity, comes half so home to the mind. I have no idea of courage 
that braves Heaven. 'Tis the wild ravings of an imaginary hero 
in Bedlam. I can no more, Clarinda ; I can scarce hold up my 
head ; but I am happy you don't know it, you would be so uneasy. 

Sylvander. 

Monday Morning. 
I am, my lovely friend, much better this morning, on the 
whole ; but I have a horrid languor on my spirits — 

" Sick of the world and all its joy, 
My soul in pining sadness mourns; 
Dark scenes of wo my mind employ, 
The past and present in their turns.'' 

Have you ever met with a saying of the great and likewise good 
Mr Locke, author of the famous Essay on the Human Under- 
standing? He wrote a letter to a friend,, directing it " Not to be 
delivered till after my decease." It ended thus — " I know you 
loved me when living, and will preserve my memory now I am 
dead. All the use to be made of it is — that this life affords no 
Bolid satisfaction but in the consciousness of having done welL 
and the hopes of another life. Adieu ! I leave my best wishes 
vith you. — J. Locke." 

Clarinda, may I reckon on your friendship for life? I think ] 
may. Thou Almighty Preserver of men ! Thy friendship, which 
hitherto I have too much neglected, to secure it shall all the 



BURNS' LETTERS. 41 B 

future days and nights of my life be my steady care !— The idea 
of my Clarinda follows :— 

H Hide it, my heart, -withm that close disguise, 
Where, mixed with. God's, her loved idea lies." 

But I fear inconstancy, the consequent imperfection of human 
weakness. Shall I meet with a friendship that defies years of ab- 
sence, and the chances and changes of fortune ? Perhaps " such 
things are. 5 ' One honest man I have great hopes from that way : 
but who, except a romance writer, would think on a love that could 
promise for life, in spite of distance, absence, chance, and change; 
and that, too, with slender hopes of fruition? For my own part, 
I can say to myself in both requisitions, " Thou art the man !" I 
dare, in cool resolve, I dare declare myself that friend and that 
lover. If womankind is capable of such things, Clarinda is. I 
trust that she is ; and feel I shall be miserable if she is not. 
There is not one virtue which gives worth, or one sentiment which 
does honour to the sex, that she does not possess superior to any 
woman I ever saw; her exalted mind, aided a little perhaps by 
her situation, is, I think, capable of that nobly-romantic love- 
enthusiasm. 

May I see you on Wednesday evening, my dear angel ? The 
next Wednesday again will, I conjecture, be a hated day to us 
both. I tremble for censorious remarks for your sake ; but in ex- 
traordinary cases may not usual and useful precautions be a 
little dispensed with ? Three evenings, three swift-winged even- 
ings, with pinions of down, are all the past — I dare not calculate 
the future. I shall call at Miss Nimmo's to-morrow evening ; 
'twill be a farewell call. 

I have written out my last sheet of paper, so I am reduced to 
my last half-sheet. What a strange, mysterious faculty is that 
thing called imagination I AVe have no ideas almost at all of 
another world ; but I have often amused myself with visionary 
schemes of what happiness might be enjoyed by small alterations 
— alterations that we can fully enter to, in this present state of 
existence. For instance, suppose you and I just as we are at pre- 
sent, the same reasoning powers, sentiments, and even desires ; 
the same fond curiosity for knowledge and remarking observation 
m our minds — and imagine our bodies free from pain, and the 
necessary supplies for the wants of nature at all times and easily 
within our reach ; imagine further that we were set free from the 
laws of gravitation which bind us to this globe, and could at 
pleasure fly, without inconvenience, through all the yet uncon- 
nected bounds of creation — what a life of bliss should we lead 
in our mutual pursuit of virtue and knowledge, and our mutual 
enjoyment of friendship and love ! 

I see you laughing at my fairy fancies, and calling me a vo* 



31G BURNS' LETTERS. 

luptuous Mahometan ; but I am certain I should be a happy crea- 
ture, beyond anything we call bliss here below : nay, it would be a 
paradise congenial to you too. Don't you see us hand-in-hand, 
making our remarks on Syrius, the nearest of the fixed stars ; 
or surveying a comet flaming innoxious by us, as we just now 
would mark the passing pomp of a travelling monarch ; while the 
most exalted strains of poesy and harmony would be the ready, 
spontaneous language of our souls ! Devotion is the favourite em- 
ployment of your heart, so is it of mine : what incentives then to, 
and powers for reverence, gratitude, faith, and hope, in all the 
fervours of adoration and praise to that Being whose unsearch- 
able wisdom, power, and goodness so pervaded, so inspired every 
sense and feeling ! By this time, I daresay, you will be blessing 
the neglect of the maid that leaves me destitute of paper. 

SyLVAjSDERi 



XCIX. 
TO MISS CHALMERS. 

Now for that wayward, unfortunate thing, myself. I have 
broke measures with Creech, and last week I wrote him a frosty, 
keen letter. He replied in terms of chastisement, and promised 
me upon his honour that I should have the account on Monday ; 
but this is Tuesday, and yet I have not heard a word from him. 
God have mercy on me ! a poor, incautious, duped, unfortunate 
fool ! The sport, the miserable victim of rebellious pride, hypo- 
chondriac imagination, agonising sensibility, and Bedlam passions! 

" I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to die !" I had lately 
" a hairbreadth 'scape in th' imminent deadly breach" of love too. 
Thank my stars, I got off heart-whole, " waur fleyed [worse fright- 
ened] than hurt." — Interruption. 

I have this moment got a hint I fear I am something 

like — undone— but I hope for the best. Come, stubborn pride, 
and unshrinking resolution ; accompany me through this, to me, 
miserable world ! You must not desert me. Your friendship I 
think I can count on, though I should date my letters from a 
marching regiment. Early in life, and all my life, I reckoned on 
a recruiting drum as my forlorn hope. Seriously though, life pre- 
sents me with but a melancholy path ; but — my limb will soon b« 
sound, snd I shall struggle on. R, R. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



417 



TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Edixbuegh, January 21, 178.^ 

After six weeks* confinement,'! am beginning to walk across 
the room. They have been six horrible weeks ; anguish and low 
spirits made me unfit to read, write, or think. 

I have a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an 
officer resigns a commission ; for I would not take in any poor 
ignorant wretch, by selling out. Lately I was a sixpenny private, 
and a miserable soldier enough ; now I march to the campaign, a 
starving cadet — a little more conspicuously wretched. 

I am ashamed of all this ; for though I do want bravery for the 
warfare of life, I could wish, like some other soldiers, to have as 
much fortitude or cunning as to dissemble or conceal my cowardice. 

As soon as I can bear the journey, which will be, I suppose, 
about the middle of next week, I leave Edinburgh ; and soon 
after I shall pay my grateful duty at Dunlop House. R. B. 



CI. 

TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ. OF FIN TRY 

Sir,— "When I had the honour of being introduced to you at 
Atholc House, I did not think so soon of asking a favour of you. 
When Lear, in Shakspeare, asked old Kent why he wished to be 
in his service, he answers, " Because you have that in your face 
which I would fain call master." For some such reason, sir, do I 
now solicit your patronage. You know, I daresay, of an appli- 
cation I lately made to your board to be admitted an officer of 
Excise. I have, according to form, been examined by a super- 
visor, and to-day I gave in his certificate, with a request for an 
order for instructions. In this affair, if I succeed, I am afraid I 
shall but too much need a patronising friend. Propriety of con- 
duct as a man, and fidelity and attention as an officer, I dare 
engage for; but with anything like business, except manual labour, 
I am totally unacquainted. 

I had intended to have closed my late appearance on the stage 
of life in the character of a country farmer ; but after discharging 
gome filial and fraternal claims, I find I could only fight for exist- 
ence in that miseraoie manner wmcn I nave lived to see throw a 
venerable parent into the jaws ox a jail ; wnence aeath, the poor 
man's last and often best friend, rescued him. 

1 know, sir, that to need your goodness is to have a claim on 
it ; may I therefore beg your patronage to forward me in this 



418 



turns' letters. 



affair, till I be appointed to a division — where, by the help of 
rigid economy, I will try to support that independence so dear 
to my soul, but which has been too often so distant from my situa- 
tiw R. B. 



on. 

TO THE LAR1, CF GLENOAIRN. 

My Lord, — I know your lordship will disapprove of my ideas 
in a request I am going to make to you ; but I have weighed, 
long and seriously weighed, my situation, my hopes, and turn of 
mind, and am fully fixed to my scheme, if I can possibly effec- 
tuate it. I wish to get into the Excise ; I am told that your 
lordship's interest will easily procure me the grant from the 
commissioners ; and your lordship's patronage and goodness, 
which have already rescued me from obscurity, wretchedness, 
and exile, embolden me to ask that interest. You have likewise 
put it in my power to save the little tie of home that sheltered 
an aged mother, two brothers, and three sisters, from destruc- 
tion. There, my lord, you have bound me over to the highest 
gratitude. 

My brother's farm is but a wretched lease, but I think he will 
probably weather out the remaining seven years of it ; and after 
the assistance which I have given, and will give him, to keep the 
family together, I think, by my guess, I shall have rather better 
than two hundred pounds; and instead of seeking, what is almost 
impossible at present to find, a farm that I can certainly live by, 
with so small a stock, I shall lodge this sum in a banking-house, 
a sacred deposit, excepting only the calls of uncommon distress 
or necessitous old age. 

These, my lord, are my views : I have resolved from the ma- 
turest deliberation ; and now I am fixed, I shall leave no stone 
unturned to carry my resolve into execution. Your lordship's 
patronage is the strength of my hopes ; nor have I yet applied 
to anybody else. Indeed, my heart sinks within me at the idea 
of applying to any other of the great who have honoured me 
with their countenance, I am ill qualified to dog the heels of 
greatness with the impertinence of solicitation, and tremble 
nearly as much at the thought of the cold promise as the cold 
denial ; but to your lordship I have not only the honour, the 
comfort, but the pleasure of being your lordship's much obliged 
and deeply-indebted numoie se^rsnt, j*. B, 



BURNS' LETTERS*. W 



CIII. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Thursday Morning [January 241 
" Unlavish Wisdom never works in vain." 

I have been tasking my reason, Clarinda, why a woman, who, 
for native genius, poignant wit, strength of mind, generous sin- 
cerity of soul, and the sweetest female tenderness, is without a 
peer, and whose personal charms have few, very very few, parallels 
nmong her sex ; why, or how she should fall to the blessed lot of 
a poor hairum-scairum poet whom Fortune had kept for her 
particular use, to wreak her temper on whenever she was in 
ill-humour. One time I conjectured, that as Fortune is the most 
capricious jade ever known, she may have taken, not a fit of 
remorse, but a paroxysm of whim, to raise the poor fellow out of 
the mire, where he had so often and so conveniently served her as 
a stepping-stone, and given him the most glorious boon she ever 
had in her gift, merely for the maggot's sake, to see how his fool 
head and his fool heart will bear it. At other times I was vain 
enough to think that Nature, who has a great deal to say with 
Fortune, had given the coquettish goddess some such hint as, i 
" Here is a paragon of female excellence, whose equal, in all my | 
former compositions, I never was lucky enough to hit on, and j 
despair of ever doing so again ; you have cast her rather in the ! 
shades of life ; there is a certain poet of my making ; among \ 
your frolics it would not be amiss to attach him to this master- 
piece of my hand, to give her that immortality among mankind 
which no woman, of any age, ever more deserved, and which few 
rhymsters of this age are better able to confer." 

Evening, 9 o'clock. 

I am here, absolutely unfit to finish my letter — pretty hearty 
after a bowl, which has been constantly plied since dinner till 
this moment. I have been with Mr Schetki, the musician, and 
he has set the song (Farewell to Clarinda, p. 127) finely. I have 
no distinct ideas of anything, but that I have drunk your health 
twice to-night, and that you are all my soul holds dear in this 
world. Sylvander. 



CIV. 

TO CLARINDA. 

[Friday, February 1J. 
Clarinda, my life, you have wounded my soul. Can I think 
of your being unhappy, even though it be not described in your 
pathetic elegance of language, without being miserable ? CI* 



2d 



120 burns' letters. 



rinda, can I bear to be told from you that " you will not see 
me to-morrow night — that you wish the hour of parting were 
come V Do not let us impose on ourselves by sounds. * * * • 
Why, my love, talk to me in such strong terms, every word of 
which cuts me to the very soul ? You know a hint, the slightest 
signification of your wish, is to me a sacred command. 

Be reconciled, my angel, to your God, yourself, and me ; and I 
pledge you Syivander's honour— an oath, I daresay, you will trust 
without reserve — that you shall never more have reason to com- 
plain of his conduct. Now, my love, do not wound our next 
meeting with any averted looks. * * « T have marked the 
line of conduct — a line, I know, exactly to your taste — and which 
I will inviolably keep ; but do not you show the least inclination 
to make boundaries. Seeming distrust, where you know you may 
confide, is a cruel sin against sensibility. 

" Delicacy, you know, it was which won me to you at once : take 
care you do not loosen the dearest, most sacred tie that unites us." 
Clarinda, I would not have stung your soul — I would not have 
bruised your spirit, as that harsh, crucifying " Take care," did 
mine ,• no not to have gained heaven ! Let me again appeal to 
your dear self, if Sylvander, even when he seemingly half trans- 
gressed the laws of decorum, if he did n^t show more chastised, 
trembling, faltering delicacy, than ths many of the world do in 
keeping these laws ? 

Oh Love and Sensibility, ye have conspired against my Peace ! 
I love to madness, and I feel to torture ! Clarinda, how can I 
forgive myself, that I have ever touched a single chord in your 
bosom with pain ! Would I do it willingly ? Would any consi- 
deration, any gratification, make me do so ? Oh, did you love like 
me, you would not, you could not, deny or put off a meeting with 
the man who adores you ; who would die a thousand deaths before 
he would injure you ; and who must soon bid you a long farewell ! 

I had proposed bringing my bosom friend, Mr Ainslie, to-morrow 
evening, at his strong request, to see you ; as he has only time to 
stay with us about ten minutes, for an engagement. But I shall 
hear from you : this afternoon, for mercy's sake ! — for, till I hear 
from you, I am wretched. Oh Clarinda, the tie that binds me to 
thee is intwisted, incorporated with my dearest threads of life ! 

Sylvander. 



CV. 

TO CLARINDA. 

I was on the way, my love, to meet you (I never do things by 
halves) when I got your card. Mr Ainslie goes out % of town to* 
mcrrow morning to see a brother of his, who is newly arrived 



BURNS' LETTERS. 421 



from France. I am determined that he and I shall call on you 
together. So look you, lest I should never see to-morrow, we will 
call on you to-night. Mary and you may put off tea till about 
seven, at which time, in the Galloway phrase, " an the beast be 
to the fore, and the branke bide hale," expect the humblest d! 
your humble servants, and his dearest friend. We only propose 
staying half an hour — " for ought we ken." I could suffer the 
lash of misery eleven months in the year, were the twelfth to be 
composed of hours like yesternight. You are the soul of my en- 
joyment — all else is of the stuff of stocks and stones ! 

Sylvander. 



CVI. 
TO CLARINDA. 

Sunday Noon. 

I have almost given up the Excise idea. I have been just 

now to wait on a great person, Miss *s friend, . Why 

will great people not only deafen us with the din of their equi- 
page, and dazzle us with their fa&tidious pomp, but they must 
also be so very dictatorially wise ? I have been questioned like a 
child about my matters, and blamed and schooled for my inscrip- 
tion on the Stirling window. Come, Clarinda ! — " Come, curse me, 
Jacob ; come, defy me, Israel I" 

Sunday Night. 

I have been with Miss Nimmo. She is indeed " a good soul," 
as my Clarinda finely says. She has reconciled me, in a good 
measure, to the world with her friendly prattle. 

Schetki has sent me the song, set to a fine air of his composing. 
I have called the song Clarinda : I have carried it about in my 
pocket, and hummed it over all day. 

Monday Morning. 

If my prayers have any weight in Heaven, this morning looks 
in on you and finds you in the arms of peace, except where it is 
charmingly interrupted by the ardours of devotion. I find so 
much serenity of mind, so much positive pleasure, so much fearless 
daring toward the world, when I warm in devotion, or feel the 
glorious sensation — a consciousness of Almighty friendship — thai 
[ am sure I shall soon be an honest enthusiast. 

u How are thy servants blest, Lord! 
How sure is their defence! 
Eternal wisdom is their gnide, 
Their help Omnipotence/' 

I am, my dear madam, yours Sylva.nees, 



4? 9 BURNS' letters. 

CVII. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Sunday Morning 

I HAVE just been before the throne of my God, Clarinda ; ac* 
cording to nay association of ideas, my sentiments of love and 
friendship, I next devote myself to you. Yesternight I was 
happy — happiness that the world cannot give. I kindle at the 
recollection ; but it is a flame where innocence looks smiling on, 
and honour stands by, a sacred guard. Your heart, your fondest 
wishes, your dearest thoughts, these are yours to bestow : your 
person is unapproachable by the laws of your country ; and he 
loves not as I do who would make you miserable. 

You are an angel, Clarinda ; you are surely no mortal that " the 
earth owns." To kiss your hand, to live on your smile, is to me 
far more exquisite bliss than the dearest favours that the fairest 
of the sex, yourself excepted, can bestow. 

Sunday Evening, 

You are the constant companion of my thoughts. How wretch- 
ed is the condition of one who is haunted with conscious guilt, and 
trembling under the idea of dreaded vengeance ! and what a 
placid calm, what a charming secret enjoyment it gives, to bosom 
the kind feeling of friendship and the fond throes of love ! Out 
upon the tempest of anger, the acrimonious gall of fretful impa- 
tience, the sullen frost of louring resentment, or the corroding 
poison of withered envy ! They eat up the immortal part of man ! 
If they spent their fury only on the unfortunate objects of them, 
it would be something in their favour ; but these miserable pas- 
sions, like traitor Iscariot, betray their lord and master. 

Thou Almighty Author of peace, and goodness, and love ! do 
thou give me the social heart that kindly tastes of every man's 
cup ! Is it a draught of joy ? — warm and open my heart to share 
it with cordial unenvying rejoicing! Is it the bitter portion of 
sorrow ? — melt my heart with sincerely sympathetic woe ! — above 
all, do thou give me the manly mind, that resolutely exemplifies, 
in life and manners, those sentiments which I would wish to be 
thought to possess ! The friend of my soul ; there, may I never 
deviate from the firmest fidelity and most active kindness ! Cla- 
rinda, the dear object of my fondest love ; there, may the most 
sacred inviolate honour, the most faithful kindling constancy, 
ever watch and animate my every thought and imagination ! 

Did you ever meet with the following lines spoken of religion— 
your darling topic ? — 

" 'Tit this, my friend, that streaks our morning bright; 
Tis this that gilds the horrors of our night; 
When wealth forsakes us, and when friends sure few, 
Whexx friends are faithless, or when foes pursue; 



-. 1 1 

»Tia this that wards the blow, or stills the s— 

Disarms affliction, or repels its dart : 

Within the breast bids purest rapture rise. 

Bids smiling Conscience spread her cloudleeB skies.* 

I met with these verses very early in life, and was so deligi. . 
with them that I have them by me, copied at school. 
Good night, and sound rest, my dearest Clarinda ! 



CVIIL 

TO CLARES"! ._ 

Thursday ffight. 

I ca>~>-ot be easy, my Clarinda, while any sentiment respecting 
me in your bosom gives me pain. If there is at man on earth to 
whom your heart and affections are justly due, it may savour of 
imprudence, but never of criminality, to bestow that heart and 
those affections where you please. The God of love meant and 
made those delicious attachments to be bestowed on somebody; 
and even all the imprudence lies in bestowing them on an un- 
worthy object. If this reasoning is conclusive, as i I Deri linlj is, I 
must be allowed to u talk of L<: 

It is, perhaps, rather wrong to speak highly to a friend .: bis 
letter : it is apt to lay one under a little restrain: in 
letters, and restraint is the death of a friendly epistle ; but fcfcei . 
is one passage in you: Fining letter, Thomson :r Shen- 

stone never exceeded it, nor often came up to it. I shall cer: 
steal it, and set it in some future poetic production, and get immor- 
tal fame by it. 'Tis when you bid th e we i bb nt nab 
me of Clarinda, Can I forget you. Clarinda? I would letest 
myself as a tasteless, unfeeling insipid, infamous blockhead 
have loved woman of ordinary merit, whom I could have loved • 
for ever. You are the first, the only unexceptionable individual 
of the beauteous sex that I ever met with ; and never woman 
more entirely possessed my soul ! I know myself, and how far I 
can depend on passion^ 5— ell. It has been my peculiar study. 

I thank you for going to Mien. Urge him, for necessity calls, 
to have it done by the middle of next week, — Wednesday the 
latest day. I want it for a breast-pin, to wear next my heart* I 
propose to keep sacred set times, to wander in the woods and 
wilds for meditation on you. Then, and only then, your lovely 
image shall be produced to the day, with a reverence akin to de- 
votion* 

- . * * 9 * * 

To-morrow night shall not be the last. Good night! I an 
perfectly stupid, as I supped late yesternight, SklvaHDBS. 



L2i buhns' letters. 



CIX. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Saturday Morning. 

There is no time, my Clarinda, when the conscious thrilling 
chords of love and friendship give such delight as in the pensive 
hours of what our favourite Thomson calls " philosophic melan- 
choly." The sportive insects who bask in the sunshine of pro- 
sperity, or the worms that luxuriant crawl amid their ample 
wealth of earth, they need no Clarinda — they would despise 
Sylvander, if they dared. The family of Misfortune— a numerous 
group of brothers and sisters ! — they need a resting-place to their 
souls. Unnoticed, often condemned by the world, — in some de- 
gree, perhaps, condemned by themselves, — they feel the full en- 
joyment of ardent love, delicate, tender endearments, mutual 
esteem, and mutual reliance. 

In this light I have often admired religion. In proportion as 
we are wrung with grief or distracted with anxiety, the ideas of 
a compassionate Deity, an Almighty Protector, are doubly dear. 

" 'Tie this, my friend, that streaks our morning bright; 
'Tis this that gilds the horrors of our night." 

I have been this morning taking a peep through, as Young 
finely says, " the dark postern of time long elapsed ;" and you will 
easily guess 'twas a rueful prospect. What a tissue of thought- 
lessness, weakness, and folly ! My life reminded me of a ruined 
temple : what strength, what proportion in some parts ! — what 
unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruins in others ! I kneeled down 
before the Father of Mercies, and said, " Father, I have sinned 
against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called 
thy son !" I rose, eased and strengthened. I despise the super- 
stition of a fanatic, but I love the religion of a man. * The 
future," said I to myself, " is still before me : there let me 

" On reason build resolve- 
That column of true majesty in man ••' 

I have difficulties many to encounter ," said I ; " but they are not 
absolutely insuperable : and where is firmness of mind shewn but 
in exertion ? Mere declamation is bombast rant. Besides, where- 
ever I am, or in whatever situation I may be, 

* 'Tis nought to me 
Since God is ever present, ever felt, 
In the void waste as in the city full ; 
And where he rital breathes, there must be joy." 

Saturday Night, Half after Ten. 

What luxury of bliss I was enjoying this time yesternight! 

My ever dearest Clarinda, you have stolen away my soul : but 

you have refined, you have exalted it; you have given it a stronger 

sense of virtue, and a stronger relish for piety. Clarinda, first of 



BURNS'IPTTEIiS. 



your sex ! if ever I am the veriest wretch en earth to forget you 
— if ever your lovely image is effaced from my soul, 

" May I be lost, no eye to weep my end, 
And find no earth that's base enough to bury mo !'• 

What trifling silliness is the childish fondness of the every-day 
children of the world ! 'Tis the unmeaning toying of the young- 
lings of the fields and forests ; but, where sentiment and fancy 
unite their sweets, where taste and delicacy refine, where wit adds 
the flavour, and good sense gives strength and spirit to all, * * 

Sylvander. 



CX. 

TO CLARINDA. 

* * * I am a discontented ghost, a perturbed spirit. 
Clarinda, if ever you forget Sylvander, may you be happy, but he 
will be miserable. 

Oh what a fool I am in lovo ! what an extravagant prodigal 
of affection! Why are your sex called the tender sex, when I 
never have met with one who can repay me in passion ? They 
are either not so rich in love as I am, or they are niggards where 
I am lavish. 

Thou, whose I am, and whose are all my ways ! Thou see'st 
me here, the hapless wreck of tides and tempests in my own 
bosom: do Thou direct to thyself that ardent love, for which I 
have so often sought a return in vain from my fellow-creatures ! 
If Thy goodness has yet such a gift in store for me as an equal 
return of affection from her who, Thou knowest, is dearer to me 
than life, do Thou bless and hallow our band of love and friend- 
ship; watch over us, in all our outgoings and incomings for good; 
and may the tie that unites our hearts be strong and indissoluble 
as the thread of man's immortal life ! 

1 am just going to take your blackbird, the sweetest, I am 
sure that ever sung, and prune its wings a little. 

Sylvander. 



CXI. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Tuesday Morning. 
I CANNOT go out to-day, my dearest love, without sending yon 
half a line by way of a sin-offering ; but believe me, 'twas the sin 
of ignorance. Could you think that I intended to hurt you by 
anything I said yesternight ? Nature has been too kind to you 
fo" your happiness, your delicacy, your sensibility. Oh why 
should such glorious qualifications be the fruitful source of wo' 



*2« BURNS' letters. 

You have " murdered sleep " to ine last night. I went to hed 
impressed with an idea that you were unhappy ; and every start 
I closed niy eyes, busy Fancy painted you in such scenes of ro- 
mantic misery that I would almost be persuaded you are not 
well this morning. 

' If I unwitting have offended, 
Impute it not," 

" But while we live 
But one short hour, perhaps, between us two 
Let there be peace." 

If Mary is not gone by the time this reaches you, give her my 
best compliments. She is a charming girl, and highly worthy of 
the noblest love. 

I send you a poem to read till I call on you this night, which 
will be about nine. I wish I could procure some potent spell, some 
fairy charm, that would protect from injury, or restore to rest, 
that bosom chord, " tremblingly alive all o'er," on which hangs 
your peace of mind. I thought — vainly, I fear, thought — that the 
devotion of love — love strong as even you can feel, love guarded, 
invulnerably guarded by all the purity of virtue, and all the pride 
of honour — I thought such a love might make you happy. Shall 
I be mistaken ? I can no more, for hurry. Sylvander. 



axii. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Friday Morning, 7 o'clock. 
Ycup. fears for Mary are truly laughable. I suppose, my love, 
you and I showed her a scene which, perhaps, made her wish that 
she had a swain, and one who could love like me ; and 'tis a 
thousand pities that so good a heart as hers should want an aim, 
an object. I am miserably stupid this morning. Yesterday I 
dined with a baronet, and sat pretty late over the bottle. And 
" who hath wo — who hath sorrow ? they that tarry long at the 
wine ; they that go to seek mixed wine." Forgive me, likewise, 
a quotation from my favourite author. Solomon's knowledge of 
the world is very great. He may be looked on as the " Spectator"' 
or u Adventurer" of his day : and it is, indeed, surprising what 
a sameness has ever been in human nature. The broken, but 
strongly characterising hints, that the royal author gives us of 
the manners of the court of Jerusalem and country of Israel, are 
in their great outlines the same pictures that London and England, 
Versailles and France, exhibit some three thousand years later. 
The loves in the " Song of Songs" are all in the spirit of Lady 
M. W Montagu, or Madame Ninon de l'Enclos ; though, for my 
part, I dislike both the ancient and modern voluptuaries ; and 
will dare to affirm that such an attachment as mine to Clarinda, 



BURNS' LETTERS. *2? 



and such evenings as eke and I have spent, are what these greatly 
respectable and deeply experienced judges of life and love never 
dreamed of. 

I shall be with you this evening between eight and nine, and 
shall keep as sober hours as you could wish. I am ever, my dear 
madam, yours Sylvander. 



CXIIT. 

TO CLARINDA. 

My ever dearest Clarinda,— I make a numerous dinner- 
party wait me while I read yours and write this. Do not require 
that I should cease to love you, to adore you in my soul ; 'tis to 
me impossible : your peace and happiness are to me dearer than 
my soul. Name the terms on which you wish to see me, to corre- 
spond with me, and you have them. I must love, pine, mourn, and 
adore in secret : this you must not deny me. You will ever be 
to me 

fi Dear as the light that visits those sad eyes, 
Dear as the ruddy drops that -warm my heart." 

I have not patience to read the Puritanic scrawl. Sophistry ! 
Ye heavens, ye look down with approving eyes on a passion in- 
spired by the purest flame, and guarded by truth, delicacy, and 
1 honour ; but the half-inch soul of an unfeeling, cold-blooded, pitiful 
| Presbyterian bigot cannot forgive anything above his dungeon- 
bosom and foggy head. 

Farewell ! I'll be with you to-morrow evening ; and be at rest 
in your mind. I will be yours in the way you thiuk most to your 
happiness. I dare not proceed. I love, and will love you ; and 
will, with joyous confidence, approach the throne of the Almighty 
Judge of men with your dear idea ; and will despise the scum of 
sentiment and the mist of sophistry. Sylvander. 



CXIV. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Wednesday, Midnight. 

Madam, — After a wretched day, I am preparing for a sleepless 
night. I am going to address myself to the Almighty Witness of 
my actions — some time, perhaps very soon, my Almighty Judge, 
I am not going to be the advocate of Passion : be Thou my inspirer 
and testimony, O God, as I plead the cause of truth ! 

I have read over your friend's haughty dictatorial letter : voti 
are only answerable to your God in such a matter. Who gave any 



4 28 BURNS' LETTERS. 

fellow-creature of yours (a fellow-creature incapable of being youi 
judge, because not your peer) aright to catechise, scold, undervalue, 
abuse, and insult — wantonly and unhumanly to insult — you thus ? 
I don't wish, not even wish, to deceive you, madam. The Searcher 
of hearts is my witness how dear you are to me ; but though it 
were possible you could be still dearer to me, I would not even 
kiss your hand at the expense of your conscience. Away with 
declamation ! let us appeal to the bar of common sense. It is not 
mouthing everything sacred ; it is not vague ranting assertions ; 
it is not assuming — haughtily and insultingly assuming— the dicta- 
torial language of a Roman pontiff", that must dissolve a union 
like ours. Tell me, madam, are you under the least shadow of an 
obligation to bestow your love, tenderness, caresses, affections, 
heart and soul, on Mr M'Lehose — the man who has repeatedly , 
habitually, and barbarously broken through every tie of duty, 
nature, or gratitude to you ? The laws of your country, indeed, 
for the most useful reasons of policy and sound government, have 
made your person inviolate ; but are your heart and affections 
bound to one who gives not the least return of either to you ? 
You cannot do it ; it is not in the nature of things that you are 
bound to do it; the common feelings of humanity forbid it. Have 
you, then, a heart and affections which are no man's right ? You 
have. It would be highly, ridiculously absurd to suppose the con- 
trary. Tell me, then, in the name of common-sense, can it be 
wrong, is such a supposition compatible with the plainest ideas of 
right and wrong, that it is improper to bestow the heart and ttier*. 
affections on another — while that bestowing is not in the smallest 
degree hurtful to your duty to God, to your children, to yourseii, 
or to society at large. 

This is the great test ; the consequences — let us see them. In 
a widowed, forlorn, lonely situation, with a bosom glowing with 
love and tenderness, yet so delicately situated that you cannot 
indulge these nobler feelings, Sylvander. 



cxv. 

TO CLARINDA. 

"I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan." I have 
suffered, Clarinda, from your letter. My soul was in arms at the 
sad perusal. I dreaded that I had acted wrong. If I have 
wronged you, God forgive me. But, Clarinda, be comforted. Let 
us raise the tone of our feelings a little higher and bolder. A 
fellow-creature who leaves us — who spurns us without just cause, 
though once our bosom friend — up with a little honest pride : let 
him go . How phall I comfort you, who am the cause of the in* 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



jury ? Can I wish that I had never seen you — that we had never 
met ? No, I never will. But, have I thrown you friendless ? — 
there is almost distraction in the thought. Father of mercies! 
against Thee often have I sinned : through Thy grace I will endea- 
vour to do so no more. She who Thou knowest is dearer to me 
than myself— pour Thou the balm of peace into her past wounds, 
and hedge her about with Thy peculiar care, all her future days 
and nights. Strengthen her tender, noble mind firmly to suffer 
and magnanimously to bear. Make me worthy of that friendship 
— that love she honours me with. May my attachment to her be 
pure as devotion, and lasting as immortal life ! O, Almighty 
Goodness, hear me ! Be to her at all times, particularly in the 
hour of distress or trial, a friend and comforter, a guide and 
guard. 

" How are thy servants blest, Lord, 

How sure is their defence ! 
Eternal wisdom is their guide, 

Their help Omnipotence." 

Forgive me, Clarinda, the injury I have done you. To-night I 
shall be with you, as indeed I shall be ill at ease till I see you. 

Sylvander. 



CXVI. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Two o'clock. 

I JUST now received your first letter of yesterday, by the care- 
less negligence of the penny-post. Clarinda, matters are grown 
very serious with us ; then seriously hear me, and hear me, 
Heaven — I met you, my dear , by far the first of woman- 
kind, at least to me ; I esteemed, I loved you at first sight : the 
longer I am acquainted with you, the more innate amiableness 
and worth I discover in you. You have suffered a loss, I confess, 
for my sake : but if the firmest, steadiest, warmest friendship— if 
every endeavour to be worthy of your friendship — if a love, strong 
as the ties of nature, and holy as the duties of religion — all 
these can make anything like a compensation for the ev I have 
occasioned you, if they be worth your acceptance, or can in the 
least add to your enjoyments — so help Sylvander, ye Powers above, 
in his hour of need, as he freely gives these all to Clarinda ! 

I esteem you, I love you as a friend ; I admire you, I love you 
as a woman, beyond any one in all the circle of creation ; I know 
I shall continue to esteem you, to love you, to pray for you — nay, 
to pray for myself for your sake. 

Expect me at eight — and believe me to be ever, my dearest 
madam, yours most entirely, Sylyanbes, 



*3U BURNS' LETTERS, 



CXVII. 

TO CLARINDA. 

"When matters, rny love, are desperate, we must put on a despe- 
rate face — 

" On reason build resolve, 
That column of true majesty in man.'' — 

or, as the same author finely says in another place, 

" Let thy soul spring up, 
And lay strong hold for help on Him that made thee." 

I am yours, Clarinda, for life. Never be discouraged at all thi3. 
Look forward : in a few weeks I shall be somewhere or other, out 
of the possibility of seeing you : till then, I shall write you often, 
but visit you seldom. Your fame, your welfare, your happiness, 
are dearer to me than any gratification whatever. Be comforted, 
my love ! the present moment is the worst ; the lenient hand of 
time is daily and hourly either lightening the burden, or making 
us insensible to the weight. None of these friends — I mean Mr 

and the other gentleman — can hurt your worldly support : 

and of their friendship, in a little time you will learn to be easy, 
and by and by to be happy without it. A decent means of liveli- 
hood in the world, an approving God, a peaceful conscience, and 
one firm, trusty friend— can anybody that has these be said to be 
unhappy ? These are yours. 

To-morrow evening I shall be with you about eight, probably 
for the last time till I return to Edinburgh. In the meantime, 
should any of these two unlucky friends question me, whether I 
am the man, I do not think they are entitled to any information. 
As to their jealousy and spying, I despise them. Adieu, my 
dearest madam ! Sylyander. 



CXVIII. 

TO MR JAMES CANDLISH. 

Edinburgh, 1788. 
My dear Friend,— If once I were gone from this scene of hurry 
and dissipation, I promise myself the pleasure of that correspond- 
ence being renewed which has been so long broken. At present 
I have time for nothing. Dissipation and business engross every 
moment. I am engaged in assisting an honest Scotch enthusiast,* a 
friend of mine, who is an engraver, and has taken it into his head 
to publish a collection of all our songs set to music, of which the 
words and music are done by Scotsmen. This, you will easily 
guess, is an undertaking exactly to my taste. I have collected, 

* Mr Johnson, publisher of *he Scots Musical Museum. 



BURNS* LETTERS. 4H 



begged, borrowed, and stolen, all the songs I could meet with, 
Pompey's Ghost, words and music, I beg from you immediately, 
to go into his second number — the first is already published. I 
shall shew you the first number when I see you in Glasgow, which 
will be in a fortnight or less. Do be so kind as to send me the 
song in a day or two — you cannot imagine how much it will oblige 
me. 

Direct to me at Mr W. Cruikshank's, St James's Square, New 
Town, Edinburgh. R. B. 



CXIX. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Edinburgh, February 12, 1788. 
Some things in your late letters hurt me : not that you say them, 
but that you mistake me. Religion, my honoured madam, has not 
only been all my life my chief dependence, but my dearest enjoy- 
ment. I have indeed been the luckless victim of wayward follies ; 
but, alas 1 I have ever been " more fool than knave." A mathe- 
matician without religion is a probable character ; an irreligious 
poet is a monster. R. B. 



cxx. 

TO THE REV. JOHN SKINNER. 

Edinburgh, 14tf* February 1788. 

Reverend and dear Sir, — I have been a cripple now near 
three months, though I am getting vastly better, and have been 
very much hurried besides, or else I would have wrote you sooner. 
I must beg your pardon for the epistle you sent me appearing in 
the magazine. I had given a copy or two to some of my intimate 
friends, but did not know of the printing of it till the publication 
of the magazine. However, as it does great honour to us both, 
you will forgive it. 

The second volume of the songs I mentioned to you in my last 
is published to-day. I send you a copy, which I beg you will 
accept as a mark of the veneration I have long had, and shall 
ever have, for your character, and of the claim I make to your 
continued acquaintance. Your songs appear in the third volume, 
with your name in the index ; as I assure you, sir, I have heard 
your TuUochgorum, particularly among our west country folks, 
given to many different names, and most commonly to the im- 
mortal author of The Minstrel, who indeed never wrote anything 
superior to Gie's a Sang, Montgomery cried. Your brother has pro- 
mised me your verses to the Marquis of Huntly's reel, which 



432 BURN 8' LETTERS. 



certainly deserve a place in the collection. My kind host, Mr 
Cruikshank, of the High School here, and said to be one of the 
best Latins of this age, begs me to make you his grateful acknow- 
ledgments for the entertainment he has got in a Latin publica- 
tion of yours, that I borrowed for him from your acquaintance 
and much-respected friend in this place, the Reverend Dr "Webster, 
Mr Cruikshank maintains that you write the best Latin since 
Buchanan. I leave Edinburgh to-morrow, but shall return in 
three weeks. Your song you mentioned in your last, to the tune 
)f Dumbarton Brums, and the other, which you say was done by 
A brother in trade of mine, a ploughman, I shall thank you for a 
copy of each. I am ever, reverend sir, with the most respectful 
esteem and sincere veneration, yours, R. B. 



CXXI. 

TO MR RICHARD BROWN. 

Edinburgh, February 15, 1788. 
My dear Friend, — I received yours with the greatest pleasure. 
I shall arrive at Glasgow on Monday evening ; and beg, if possible, 
you will meet me on Tuesday; I shall wait you Tuesday all day. 
I shall be found at Davies's Black Bull Inn. I am hurried, as if 
hunted by fifty devils, else I should go to Greenock ; but if you 
cannot possibly come, write me, if possible, to Glasgow, on Mon- 
day ; or direct to me at Mossgiel, by Mauchline ; and name a day 
and place in Ayrshire, within a fortnight from this date, where I 
may meet you. I only stay a fortnight in Ayrshire, and return 
to Edinburgh. I am ever, my dearest friend, yours, R. B. 



CXXII. 
TO MISS CHALMERS. 

Edinburgh, Sunday., February. 
To-morrow, my dear madam, I leave Edinburgh. I have 
altered all my plans of future life. A farm that I could live in, 
I could not find; and, indeed, after the necessary support my 
brother and the rest of the family required, I could not venture on 
farming in that style suitable to my feelings. You will condemn 
me for the next step I have taken : I have entered into the Excise. 
I stay in the west about three weeks, and then return to Edin- 
burgh for six weeks' instructions; afterwards, for I get employ 
instantly, I go ouil plait a Dieu — et mon roi. I have chosen this, 
my dear friend, after mature deliberation. The question is not, 
M what door of Fortune's palace shall we enter in, bu^ what doors 



BURNS' LETTERS. 483 



does she open to us ? I was not likely to get anything to do. I 
wanted un but, which is a dangerous, an unhappy situation. I got 
this without any hanging on or mortifying solicitation : it is 
immediate bread ; and though poor in comparison with the last 
eighteen months of my existence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all 
my preceding life : besides, the commissioners are some of them 
my acquaintances, and all of them my firm friends. R. B. 



CXXI1I. 

TO MRS ROSE OF KILRAVOCK. 

Edinburgh, February 17, 1788. 
Madam, — You are much indebted to some indispensable business 
1 have had on my hands, otherwise my gratitude threatened such 
a return for your obliging favour as would have tired your patience. 
It but poorly expresses my feelings to say, that I am sensible of 
your kindness. It may be said of hearts such as yours is, and 
such, I hope, mine is, much more justly than Addison applies it— 

" Some souls by instinct to each other turn." 

There was something in my reception at Kilravock so different 
from the cold, obsequious, dancing-school bow of politeness, that 
it almost got into my head that friendship had occupied her 
ground without the intermediate march of acquaintance. I wish 
I could transcribe, or rather transfuse into language, the glow of 
my heart when I read your letter. My ready fancy, with colours 
more mellow than life itself, painted the beautiful wild scenery oi 
Kilravock ; the venerable grandeur of the castle ; the spreading 
woods ; the winding river, gladly leaving his unsightly, heathy 
source, and lingering with apparent delight as he passes the fairy 
walk at the bottom of the garden ; your late distressful anxieties ; 
your present enjoyments ; your dear little angel, the pride of your 
hopes ; my aged friend, venerable in worth and years, whose loyalty 
and other virtues will strongly entitle her to the support of the 
Almighty Spirit here, and his peculiar favour in a happier state 
of existence. You cannot imagine, madam, how much such 
feelings delight me : they are my dearest proofs of my own im- 
mortality. Should I never revisit the north, as probably I never 
will, nor again see your hospitable mansion, were I, some twenty 
years hence, to see your little fellow's name making a proper figure 
in a newspaper paragraph, my heart would bound with pleasure. 

I am assisting a friend in a collection of Scottish songs, set to 
their proper tunes ; every air worth preserving is to be included : 
among others I have given Morag, and some few Highland airs 
which pleased me most, a dress which will be more generally 
known, though far, far inferior in real merit. As a small mark of 
my grateful esteem, I beg leave to present you with a copy of the 



434 BURNS' LETTERS. 

work, as far as it is printed : the Man of Feeling, that first of 
men,* has promised to transmit it by the first opportunity. 

I beg to be remembered most respectfully to my venerable 
friend, and to your little Highland chief tain, j" When you see the 
" two fair spirits of the hill" at Kildruininie,J tell them that I 
have done myself the honour of setting myself down as one of their 
admirers for at least twenty years to come — consequently they 
must look upon me as an acquaintance for the same period ; but, 
as the apostle Paul says, " this I ask of grace, not of debt." I 
have the honour to be, madam, &c. R. B. 



CXXIV. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Glasgow, Monday Evening, Nine o'clock. 
The attraction of love, I find, is in an inverse proportion to the 
attraction of the Newtonian philosophy. In the system of Sir 
Isaac, the nearer objects were to one another the stronger was 
the attractive force. In my system, every milestone that marked 
my progress from Clarinda awakened a keener pang of attach- 
ment to her. How do you feel, my love ? Is your heart ill at 
ease ? I fear it. God forbid that these persecutors should harass 
that peace which is more precious to me than my own. Be assured 
I shall ever think on you, muse on you, and, in my moments of 
devotion, pray for you. The hour that you are not in my thoughts, 
u . be that hour darkness ; let the shadows of death cover it ; let it 
not be numbered in the hours of the day I" 

" When I forget the darling theme, 
Be my tongue mute ! my fancy paint no more ! 
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!" 

I have just met with my old friend, the ship-captain (Mr Richard 
Brown) — guess my pleasure : to meet you could alone have given 
me more. My brother William, too, the young saddler, has come 
to Glasgow to meet me ; and here are we three span ding the 
evening. 

I arrived here too late to write by post ; but I'll wrap half-a- 
dozen sheets of blank paper together, and send it by the Fly, 
under the name of a parcel. You will hear from me next post- 
town. I would write you a longer letter, but for the present cir- 
cumstances of my friend. 

Adieu, my Clarinda I I am just going to propose your health by 
way of grace-drink. Sylvander. 

* Mr Henry Mackenzie. 

\ Mrs Rose's mother, and her son If ugh. 

t Hiss Sophia Brodie of 1,-ethin, and Miss Rose of Kilrarocfc 



BURNS' LETTERS. * ? i 



cxxv. 

TO CLARIXDA. 

Kilmarnock, Friday [Feb. 22]. 

I wrote you, rny dear madam, the moment I alighted in Glas« 
gow. Since then I have not had opportunity ; for in Paisley, 
where I arrived next day, my worthy, wise friend, Mr Pattison, 
did not allow me a moment's respite. I was there ten hours ; 
during which time I was introduced to nine men worth six thou- ] 
Bands ; five men worth ten thousands ; his brother, richly worth ! 
twenty thousands ; and a young weaver, who will have thirty , 
thousands good when his father, who has no more children than 
the said weaver, and a Whig Kirk, dies. Mr P. was bred a 
zealous Antiburgher ; but during his widowerhood he has found 
their strictness incompatible with certain compromises he is often 
obliged to make with those power3 of darkness— the devil, the 
world, and the flesh. * * * His only daughter, — who, " if the 
beast be to the fore, and the branks bide hale," will have seven 
thousand pounds when her old father steps into the dark factory- 
office of eternity with his well-thrummed web of life, — has put 
him again and again in a commendable fit of indignation by 
requesting a harpsichord. " Oh, these boarding-schools !" exclaims 
my prudent friend ; " she was a good spinner and sewer till I was 
advised by her foes and mine to give her a year of Edinburgh !" 

After two bottles more, my much-respected friend opened up to 
me a project — a legitimate child of Wisdom and Good Sense: 
'twas no less than a long-thought-on and deeply-matured design, 
to marry a girl fully as elegant in her form as the famous priestess 
whom Saul consulted in his last hours, and who had been second 
maid of honour to his deceased wife. This, you may be sure, I 
highly applauded ; so I hope for a pair of gloves by and by. I spent 
the two bypast days at Dunlop House, with that worthy family 
to whom I was deeply indebted early in my poetic career : and in i 
about two hours I shall present your " 6wa wee sarkies " to the I 
little fellow. My dearest Clarinda, you are ever present with me ; 
and these hours, that drawl by among the fools and rascals of 
this world, are only supportable in the idea, that they are the 
forerunners of that happy hour that ushers me to " the mistress of 
my soul." Next week I shall visit Dumfries, and next again re- 
turn to Edinburgh. My letters, in these hurrying dissipated 
hours, will be heavy trash ; but you know the writer. God bless 
you ! Sylvander. 



136 BURNS' LETTERS. 



CXXVI. 

TO MR RICHARD BROWN. 

Mossgiel, 21th February 1788. 
My dear Sir, — I arrived here, at my brother's, only yesterday, 
after lighting nay way through Paisley and Kilmarnock against 
those old powerful foes of mine, — the devil, the world, and the 
flesh, — so terrible m the fields of dissipation. I have met with few 
incidents in my life which gave me so much pleasure as meeting 
you in Glasgow. There is a time of life beyond which we cannot 
form a tie worth the name of friendship. " Oh youth ! enchanting 
stage, profusely blest." Life is a fairy scene : almost all that de- 
serves the name of enjoyment or pleasure is only a charming de- 
lusion ; and in comes repining age, in all the gravity of hoary 
wisdom, and wretchedly chases away the bewitching phantom. 
When I think of life. I resolve to keep a strict look-out in the 
course of economy, for the sake of worldly convenience and inde- 
pendence of mind ; to cultivate intimacy with a few of the com- 
panions of youth, that they may be the friends of age ; never to 
refuse my liquorish humour a handful of the sweetmeats of life, 
when they come not too dear ; and, for futurity — 

The present moment is our ain, 
The neist vre never saw ! 

How like you my philosophy ? Give my best compliments to 
Mrs B., and believe me to be, my dear sir, yours most truly, 

R. B, 



CXXVII. 
TO CLARINDA. 

Cumnock [Sunday], 2d March 1788. 

I nol£, and am certain, that my generous Clarinda will not 
think my silence, for now a long week, has been in any degree 
owing to my forgetfulness. I have been tossed about through the 
country ever since I wrote you; and am here, returning from 
Dumfriesshire, at an inn, the post-office of the place, with just so 
long time as my horse eats his corn, to write you. I have been 
hurried with business and dissipation almost equal to the insidious 
decree of the Persian monarch's mandate, when he forbade asking 
petition of God or man for forty days. Had the venerable pro- 
phet been as throng [busy] as I, he had not broken the decree, at 
least not thrice a-day. 

I am thinking my farming scheme will yet hold. A worthy, 
intelligent farmer, my father's friend and my own, has been with 
me on the spot : he thinks the bargain practicable. I am myself 



BURNS LETTERS. 



on a more serious review of the lands, much better pleased with 
them. I wont mention this in writing to anybody but you and 
[Ainslie]. Don't accuse me of being fickle ; I have the two plans 
of life before me, and I wish to adopt the one most likely to pro- 
cure me independence. I shall be in Edinburgh next week. I 
long to see you : your image is omnipresent to me ; nay, I am 
convinced I would soon idolatrize it most seriously — so much do 
absence and memory improve the medium through which one sees 
the much -loved object. To-night, at the sacred hour of eight, I 
expect to meet you — at the Throne of Grace. I hope, as I go 
home to-night, to find a letter from you at the post-office in 
Mauchline. I have just once seen that dear hand since I left 
Edinburgh — a letter indeed which much affected me. Tell me, 
first of womankind ! will my warmest attachment, my sincerest 
friendship, my correspondence — will they be any compensation 
for the sacrifices you make for my sake ? If they will, they are 
yours. If I settle on the farm I propose, I am just a day and a 
half's ride from Edinburgh. We will meet — don't yousay "perhaps 
loo often J" 

Farewell, my fair, my charming poetess ! May all good things 
ever attend you ! I am ever, my dearest madam, yours, 

Sylvander. 



CXXVIII. 
TO MR WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK. 

Mauchline, M March 1788. 

My dear Sir,— Apologies for not writing are frequently like 
apologies for not singing — the apology better than the song. I 
have fought my way severely through the savage hospitality of 
this country, [the object of all hosts being] to send every guest 
drunk to bed if they can 

I should return my thanks for your hospitality (I leave 

a blank for the epithet, as I know none can do it justice) to a poor 
wayfaring bard, who was spent and almost overpowered fighting 
with prosaic wickednesses in high places ; but I am afraid lest you 
should burn the letter whenever you come to the passage, so I 
pass over it in silence. I am just returned from visiting Mr 
Miller's farm. The friend whom I told you I would take with me 
was highly pleased with the farm ; and as he is, without excep- 
tion, the most intelligent farmer in the country, he has staggered 
me a good deal. I have the two plans of life before me : I shall 
balance them to the best of my judgment, and fix on the most 
eligible. I have written Mr Miller, and shall wait on him when 
I come to town, which shall be the beginning or middle of next 
week : I would be in sooner, but my unlucky knee is rather worss 



438 BURNS' LETTERS. 

and I fear for some time will scarcely stand the fatigue of my Ex- 
cise instructions. I only mention these ideas to you ; and, indeed, 
except Mr Ainslie, whom I intend writing to to-morrow, I will not 
write at all to Edinburgh till I return to it. I would send my 
compliments to Mr Nicol, but he would be hurt if he knew I wrote 
to anybody, and not to him ; so I shall only beg my best, kindest, 
kindest compliments to my worthy hostess and the sweet little 
Rosebud. 

So soon as I am settled in the routine of life, either as an excise- 
officer or as a farmer, I propose myself great pleasure from a 
regular correspondence with the only man almost I ever saw who 
joined the most attentive prudence with the warmest generosity. 

I am much interested for that best of men, Mr Wood. I hope 
he is in better health and spirits than when I saw him last. I am 
ever, my dearest friend, your obliged, humble servant, It. B. 



CXXIX. 
TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE. 

Mauchlike, Sd March 1788. 

My dear Friend — I am just returned from Mr Miller's farm e 
My old friend whom I took with me was highly pleased with the 
bargain, and advised me to accept of it. He is the most intelli« 
gent, sensible farmer in the county, and his advice has staggered 
me a good deal. I have the two plans before me ; I shall endea- 
vour to balance them to the best of my judgment, and fix on the 
most eligible. On the whole, if I find Mr Miller in the same 
favourable disposition as whea I saw him last, I shall in all pro* 
bability turn farmer. 

I have been through sore tribulation, and under much buffetting 
of the Wicked One, since I came to this country. Jean I found 
banished like a martyr — forlorn, destitute, and friendless. I have 
reconciled her to her mother. * * * 

I shall be in Edinburgh the middle of next week. My farming 
ideas I shall keep private till I see. I got a letter from Glarinda 
yesterday, and she tells me she has got no letter of mine but one. 
Tell her that I wrote to her from Glasgow, from Kilmarnock, 
from Mauchline, and yesterday from Cumnock, as I returned from 
Dumfries. Indeed, she is the only person in Edinburgh I have 
written to till this day. How are your soul and body putting up ? 
— & little like man pud wife, I suppose. Your faithful friend, 

R. B. 



burns' letters. i&* 



CXXX. 

TO THE SAME. 

Mauchline, Between 3d and 8th March 1788. 

My dear Sir, — My life, since I saw you last, has been one 
continued hurry ; that savage hospitality which knocks a man 
down with strong liquors is the devil. I have a sore warfare in 
this world — the devil, the world, and the flesh are three formidable 
foes. The first I generally try to fly from ; the second, alas ! 
generally flies from me ; but the third is my plague, worse than 
the ten plagues of Egypt. 

I have been looking over several farms in this country ; one, in 
particular, in Nithsdale, pleased me so well, that if my offer to 
the proprietor is accepted, I shall commence farmer at Whitsun- 
day. If farming do not appear eligible, I shall have recourse 
to my other shift ; but this to a friend. 

I set out for Edinburgh on Monday morning ; how long I stay 
there is uncertain, but you will know so soon as I can inform you 
myself. However, I determine poesy must be laid aside for some 
time ; my mind has been vitiated with idleness, and it will take a 
good deal of effort to habituate it to the routine of business. I 
am, my dear sir, yours sincerely, R. B. 



CXXXI. 

TO CLAMNDA. 

[March G, 1788.] 
' I own myself guilty, Clarinda : I should have written you last 
week. But when you recollect, my dearest madam, that yours of 
this night's post is only the third I have from you, and that this 
is the fifth or sixth I have sent to you, you will not reproach me,, 
with a good grace, for unkindness. I have always some kind of 
idea not to sit down to write a letter, except I have time, and pos- 
session of my faculties, so as to do some justice to my letter ; 
which at present is rarely my situation. For instance, yesterday 
I dined at a friend's at some distance : the savage hospitality of 
this country spent me the most part of the night over the nauseous 
potion in the bowl. This day — sick — headache — low spirits- 
miserable — fasting, except for a draught of water or small beer. 
Now eight o'clock at night ; only able to crawl ten minutes' walk 
into Mauchline, to wait the post, in the pleasurable hope of 
hearing from the mistress of my soul. 

But truce with all this ! When I sit down to write to you, all 
is happiness and peace. A hundred times a day do I figure you 
before your taper, your book or work laid aside as T get uilhin 



if BURNS' LETTERS. 



the room. How happy hare I been! and how little of that 
scantling portion of time, called the life of man, is sacred to hap- 
piness, much less transport. 

I could moralise to-night like a death's-head. 

" O what is life, that thoughtless wish of all I 
A drop of honey in a draught of gall." 

Nothing astonishes me more, when a little sickness clogs the 
wheels of life, than the thoughtless career we run in the hour of 
health. " None saith, where is God, my maker, that giveth 
songs in the night : who teacheth us more knowledge than the 
beasts of the field, and more understanding than the fowls of the 
air ? " 

Give me, my Maker, to remember thee ! Give me to act up 
to the dignity of my nature ! Give me to feel " another's wo ; " 
and continue with me that dear loved friend that feels with 
mine ! 

The dignifying and dignified consciousness of an honest man, 
and the well-grounded trust in approving Heaven, are two most 
substantial foundations of happiness. * * * * 

I could not have written a page to any mortal except yourself, 
I'll write you by Sunday's post. Adieu ! Good-night ! 

Sylvander. 



CXXXII. 
TO CLARINDA. 

Mossgiel, 7th March 1788. 

Clarinda, I have been so stung with your reproach for un- 
kindness, — a sin so unlike me, — a sin I detest more than a breach 
of the whole Decalogue, fifth, sixth, seventh, and ninth articles 
excepted, — that I believe I shall not rest in my grave about it, if 
I die before I see you. You have often allowed me the head to 
Judge, and the heart to feel, the influence of female excellence : 
was it not blasphemy, then, against your own charms and against 
my feelings, to suppose that a short fortnight could abate my pas- 
sion ? 

You, my love, may have your cares and anxieties to disturb 
you ; but they are the usual occurrences • of life. Your future 
views are fixed, and your mind in a settled routine. Could not 
you, my ever dearest madam, make a little allowance for a man, 
after long absence, paying a short visit to a country full of friends, 
relations, and early intimates ? Cannot you guess, my Clarinda, 
what thoughts, what cares, what anxious forebodings, hopes, and 
fears, must crowd the breast of the man of keen sensibility, when 
no less is on the tapis than his aim, his employment, his very 
existence through future life ? 

To be overtopped in anything else, I can bear: but in the tests 



BURNS' LETTERS. 441 



of generous love, I defy all mankind ! — not even to the tender, the 
fond, the loving Clarinda ; she whose strength of attachment, 
whose melting soul, may vie with Eloisa and Sappho ; not even 
eho can overpay the affection she owes me ! 

Now that, not my apology, but my defence, is made, I feel my 
soul respire more easily. I know you will go along with me in 
my justification : would to Heaven you could in my adoption, 
too ! I mean the adoption beneath the stars — an adoption where 
I might revel in the immediate beams of 

11 She the bright gun of all her sex." 

I would not have you, my dear madam, so much hurt at Miss 
Nimmo's coldness. 'Tis placing yourself below her, an honour 
she by no means deserves. We ought, when we wish to be econo- 
mists in happiness — we ought, in the first place, to fix the stand- 
ard of our own character ; and when, on full examination, we 
know where we stand, and how much ground we occupy, let ,us 
contend for it as property ! and those who seem to doubt or deny 
as what is justly ours, let us either pity their prejudices or despise 
their judgment. I know, my dear, you will say this is self-con- 
ceit ; but I call it self-knowledge. The one is the overweaning 
opinion of a fool, who fancies himself to be what he wishes himself 
to be thought ; the other is the honest justice that a man of 
sense, who has thoroughly examined the subject, owes to himself. 
Without this standard, this column in our own mind, we are per- 
petually at the mercy of the petulance, the mistakes, the preju- 
dices, nay, the very weakness and wickedness of our fellow- 
creatures. 

I urge this, my dear, both to conform myself in the doctrine 
which, I assure you, I sometimes need, and because I know that 
this causes you often much disquiet. To return to Miss Mmmo, 
She is most certainly a worthy soul ; and equalled by very, very 
few in goodness of heart. But can she boast more goodness of 
heart than Clarinda ? Not even prejudice will dare to say so : 
for penetration and decernment, Clarinda sees far beyond her. To 
wit, Miss Nimmo dare make no pretence : to Clarinda's wit.. 
scarce any of her sex dare make pretence. Personal charms, it 
would be ridiculous to run the parallel : and for conduct in life 
Miss Nimmo was never called out, either much to do, or to suffer. 
Clarinda has been both ; and has performed her part, where Miss 
Nimmo would have sunk at the bare idea. 

Away, then, with these disquietudes! Let us pray with the 
honest weaver of Kilbarchan, " Lord, send us a gude conceit o' 
oursel 1 " or, in the words of the auld sang, 

* Who does me disdain, I can scorn them again, 
And I'll never mind any such foes," 

There is an error in the commerce of intimacy. * * * 
Happy is our lot, indeed, when we meet with an honest nier= 



*42 BURNS 1 LETTERS. 

chant, who is qualified to deal with us on our own terms ; but 
that is a rarity : with almost everybody we must pocket our 
pearls, less or more, and learn, in the old Scots phrase, " To gie 
sic like as we get." For this reason we should try to erect a kind 
of bank or storehouse in our own mind ; or, as the Psalmist says, 
" We should commune with our own hearts and be still." * * * 

I wrote you yesternight, which will reach you long before this 
can. I may write Mr Ainslie before I see him, but I am not 
sure. 

Farewell! and remember Sylvander. 



CXXXIII. 

TO MR RICHARD BROAVN. 

Mauchlixe, 1th March 1788. 
I have been out of the country, my dear friend, and have not 
had an opportunity of writing till now, when I am afraid you will 
be gone out of the country too. I have been looking at farms, 
and, after all, perhaps I might settle in the character of a farmer. 
I have got so vicious a bent to idleness, and have ever been so, 
little a man of business, that it will take no ordinary effort to 
bring my mind properly into the routine ; but you will say a 
" great effort is worthy of you." I say so myself, and butter up 
my vanity with all the stimulating compliments I can think of. 
Men of grave geometrical minds, the sons of " which was to be 
demonstrated," may cry up reason as much as they please ; but 
I have always found an honest passion, or native instinct, the 
truest auxiliary in the warfare of this world. Reason almost al- 
ways comes to me like an unlucky wife to a poor fellow of a hus- 
band—just in sufficient time to add her reproaches to his other 
grievances. R. B. 



CXXXIV. 

TO MR ROBERT MUIR. 

Mossgiel. 7th March 1788. 
Dear Sir, — I have partly changed my ideas, my dear friend, 
since I saw you. I took old Glenconnor with me to Mr Miller's 
farm ; and he was so pleased with it, that I have wrote an offer to 
Mr Miller, which, if he accepts, I shall sit down a plain farmer — 
the happiest of lives when a man can live by it. In this case I 
shall not stay in Edinburgh above a week. I set out on Monday, 
and would have come by Kilmarnock, but there are several small 
sums owing me for my first edition about Galstone and Newmills, 
and I shall set off so early as to despatch my business and reach 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



Glasgow by night. When I return, I shall devote a forenoon or 
two to make some kind of acknowledgment for all the kindness 
I owe your friendship. Now that I hope to settle with some credit 
and comfort at home, there was not any friendship or friendly cor- 
respondence that promised me more pleasure than yours ; I hope 
I will not be disappointed. I trust the spring will renew your 
shattered frame, and make your friends happy. You and I have 
often agreed. that life is no great blessing on the whole. The 
close of life, indeed, to a reasoning age, is 

H Dark as was chaos, ere the infant sun 
Was rolled together, or had tried his beams 
Athwart the gloom profound." 

But an honest man has nothing to fear. If we lie down in the 
grave, the whole man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder 
with the clods of the valley, be it so ; at least there is an end of 
pain, care, woes, and wants : if that part of us called mind does 
survive the apparent destruction of the man — away with old-wife 
prejudices and tales ! Every age and every nation has had a dif- 
ferent set of stories; and as the many are always weak, of con- 
sequence they have often, perhaps always, been deceived. A man 
conscious of having acted an honest part among his fellow-crea- 
tures — even granting that he may have been the sport at times of 
passions and instincts — he goes to a great unknown Being, who 
could have no other end in giving him existence but to make him 
happy ; who gave him those passions and instincts, and well knows 
their force. 

These, my worthy friend, are my ideas ; and I know they are 
not far different from yours. It becomes a man of sense to think 
for himself, particularly in a case where all men are equally in- 
terested, and where, indeed, all men are equally in the dark. 

Adieu, my dear sir. God send us a cheerful meeting ! R. B, 



cxxxv. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Mossgiel, 1th March 17SS. 
Madam, — The last paragraph in yours of the 30th February 
affected me most, so I shall begin my answer where you ended 
your letter. That I am often a sinner, with any little wit I have, 
I do confess : but I have taxed my recollection to no purpose to 
find out when it was employed against you. I hate an ungener- 
ous sarcasm a great deal worse than I do the devil — at least as 
Milton describes him ; and though I may be rascally enough tc 
be sometimes guilty of it myself, I cannot endure it in others. 
Yen, my honoured friend, who cannot appear in any light but yon 



*♦* burns' letters. 



f.rc sure of being respectable — you can afford to pass by an occa* 
sion to display your wit, because you may depend for fame on 
your sense ; or, if you choose to be silent, you know you can rely 
on the gratitude of many and the esteem of all ; but God help us 
who are wits or witlings by profession : if we stand not for fame 
.there, we sink unsupported. 

I am highly flattered by the news you tell me of Coila .* I may 
say to the fair painter who does me so much honour, as Dr Beat- 
tie says to Ross, the poet of his Muse Scota, from which, by the 
by, I took the idea of Coila ('tis a poem of Beattie's in the Scot- 
tish dialect, which perhaps you have never seen) : — 

" Ye shake your head, but o' my fega, 
Ye've set auld Scota on her legs : 
Lang had she lien -wi'beffs and flegs, 

Bumbaz'd and dizzie, 
Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs, 

Wae's me. poor hizzie." 

R. 



CXXXVI. 

TO MISS CHALMERS. 

Edinburgh, March 14, 17&& 
I know, my ever dear friend, that you will be pleased with the 
news when I tell you I have at last taken the lease of a farm. 
Yesternight I completed a bargain with Mr Miller of Dalswinton 
for the farm of Ellisland, on the banks of the Nith, between five 
and six miles above Dumfries. I begin at Whitsunday to build a 
house, drive lime, &c. ; and Heaven be my help ! for it will take 
a strong effort to bring my mind into the routine of business. I 
have discharged all the army of my former pursuits, fancies, and 
pleasures — a motley host! — and have literally and strictly re- 
tained only the ideas of a few friends, which I have incorporated 
into a lifeguard. I trust in Dr Johnson's observation, " Where 
much is attempted, something is done." Firmness, both in sufferance 
and exertion, is a character I would wish to be thought to possess ; 
and have always despised the whining yelp of complaint, and the 
cowardly, feeble resolve. 

Poor Miss K. is ailing a good deal this winter, and begged me 
to remember her to you the first time I wrote to you. Surely 
woman, amiable woman, is often made in vain. Too delicately 
formed for the rougher pursuits of ambition ; too noble for the dirt 
of avarice ; and even too gentle for the rage of pleasure ; formed 
indeed for, and highly susceptible of, enjoyment and rapture ; but 
that enjoyment, alas ! almost wholly at the mercy of the caprice 
malevolence, stupidity, or wickedness of an animal at all times 
tomparatively unfeeling, and often brutal. R. B» 

* A daughter of Mrs Dunlop engaged in painting a sketch of Coila, 



BURNS' LETTERS. 44& 



CXXXVII. 
TO CLARLNDA. 

Monday, Noon \llth MarcK\. 

I will meet you to-morrow, Clarinda, as you appoint. My 
Excise affair is just concluded, and I have got my order for in- 
structions : so far good. Wednesday night I am engaged to sup 
among some of the principals of the Excise, so can only make a 
call for you that evening ; hut next day, I stay to dine with one 
of the Commissioners, so cannot go till Friday morning. 

Your hopes, your fears, your cares, my love, are mine ; so don't 
mind them. I will take you in my hand through the dreary wilds 
of this world, and scare away the ravening bird or beast that 
would annoy you. I saw Mary in town to-day, and asked her if 
she had seen you. . I shall certainly bespeak Mr Ainslie, as you 
desire. 

Excuse me, my dearest angel, this hurried scrawl and miserable 
pape|^* circumstances make both. Farewell till to-morrow. 

Sylvander. 



CXXXVIIT. 
TO CLARINDA. 

Tuesday Morning [ISth March.] 
I am just hurrying away to wait on the Great Man, Clarinda ; 
but I have more respect to my own peace and happiness than 
to set out without waiting on you ; for my imagination, like a 
child's favourite bird, will fondly flutter along with this scrawl, 
till it perch on your bosom. I thank you for all the happiness 
you bestowed on me yesterday. The walk — delightful ; the even- 
ing — rapture. Do not be uneasy to-day, Clarinda ; forgive me. 
I am in rather better spirits to-day, though I had but an indiffer- 
ent night. Care, anxiety, sat on my spirits ; and all the cheerful- 
ness of this morning is the fruit of some serious, important ideas 
that lie, in their realities, beyond u the dark and the narrow house," 
as Ossian, prince of poets, says. The Father of Mercies be with 
you, Clarinda ! and every good thing attend you ! 

Sylvander. 



CXXXIX. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Wednesday Morning [19th March.] 
Clarinda, will that envious night-cap hinder you from appear* 
ing at the window as I pass ? * Who is she that looketh forth as 



4*6 BURNS' LETTERS. 



the morning ; fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an 
army with banners !" 

Do not accuse me of fond folly for this line ; you know I am a 
cool lover. I mean by these presents greeting, to let you to wit, 
that arch-rascal Creech has not done my business yesternight, 
which has put off my leaving town till Monday morning. To- 
morrow at eleven I meet with him for the last time ; just the hour 
I should have met far more agreeable company. 

You will tell me this evening whether you cannot make our hour 
of meeting to-morrow one o'clock. I have just now written Creech 
such a letter, that the very goose-feather in my hand shrunk back 
from the line, and seemed to say, " I exceedingly fear and quake !" 

I am forming ideal schemes of vengeance Adieu, and 

think on Sylvandlr. 



CXL. 
TO CLARINDA. 

Friday, Nine o'clock, Night \2\st Mqixh]. 
I.am just now come in, and have read your letter. The first 
thing I did was to thank the divine Disposer of events that he 
has had such happiness in store for me as the connection I have 
with you. Life, my Clarinda, is a weary, barren path ; and woe 
be to him or her that ventures on it alone ! For me, I have my 
dearest partner of my soul : Clarinda and I will make out our 
pilgrimage together. Wherever I am, I shall constantly let her 
know how I go on, what I observe in the world around me, and 
what adventures I meet with. Will it please you, my love, to get 
every week, or at least every fortnight, a packet, two or three 
sheets, full of remarks, nonsense, news, rhymes, and old songs ? 
Will you open, with satisfaction and delight, a letter from a man 
who loves you, who has loved you, and who will love you to death, 
through death, and for ever ? Oh Clarinda ! what do I owe to 
Heaven for blessing me with such a piece of exalted excellence as 
you ! I call over your idea, as a miser counts over his treasure ! 
Tell me, were you studious to please me last night ? I am sure 
you did it to transport. How rich am I who have such a treasure 
as you ! You know me ; you know how to make me happy ; and 
you do it most effectually. God bless you with 

" Long life, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend !" 

To-morrow night, according to your own direction, I shall watch 
the window : 'tis the star that guides me to paradise. The great 
relish to all is, that Honour, that Innocence, that Religion, are 
the witnesses and guarantees of our happiness. " The Lord God 
knoweth," and perhaps * Israel he shall know," my love and your 
merit. Adieu, Clarinda ! I am going to remember you in my 
prayers. Sylvander. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 447 



CXLT. 

TO MR RICHARD BROWN. 

Glasgow, 26th March 1763. 
I am monstrously to blame, my dear sir, in not writing to yon, 
and sending you the Directory. I have been getting my tack 
extended, as I have taken a farm, and I have been racking shop 
accounts with Mr Creech ; both of whiGh, together with watching, 
fatigue, and a load of care almost too heavy for my shoulders, 
have in some degree actually fevered me. I really forgot the 
Directory yesterday, which vexed me ; but I was convulsed with 
rage a great part of the day. I have to thank you for the in- 
genious, friendly, and elegant epistle from your friend Mr Craw- 
ford. I shall certainly write to him ; but not now. This is merely 
a card to you, as I am posting to Dumfriesshire, where many per- 
plexing arrangements await me. I am vexed about the Directory; 
but, my dear sir, forgive me : these eight days I have been posi- 
tively crazed. My compliments to Mrs B. I shall write to you 
at Grenada. I am ever, my dearest friend, yours, R. B. 



CXLII. 

TO MR ROBERT CLEGHORN. 

Mauchlise, dlst March 1788. 
Yesterday, my dear sir, as I was riding through a track of 
melancholy, joyless muirs, between Galloway and Ayrshire, it 
being Sunday, I turned my thoughts to psalms, and hymns, and 
spiritual songs ; and your favourite air, Captain O'Kean, coming 
at length into my head, I tried these words to it. You will see 
that the first part of the tune must be repeated. 

The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning 
The murmuring streamlet winds clear through the vale ; 

The hawthorn trees blow in the dew of the morning, 
And wild scattered cowslips bedeck the green dale : 

But what can give pleasure, or what can seem fair, 

While the lingering moments are numbered by care? 
No flowers gaily springing, nor birds sweetly singing, 

Can soothe the sad bosom of joyless despair. 

1 am tolerably pleased with these verses ; but as I have only a 
sketch of the tune, I leave it with you to try if they suit the 
measure of the music. 

I am so harassed with care and anxiety about this farming pro- 
ect of mine, thatmy Muse has degenerated into the veriest prose- 
wench that ever picked cinders or followed a tinker. When I am 
fairly got into the routine of business, I shall trouble you with a 
longer epistle ; perhaps with some queries respecting farming : ai 



443 BURNS' LETTERS. 



present, the world sits such a load on iny mind, that it has effaced 
almost evory trace of the poet in me. 
My very best compliments and good wishes to Mrs Cleghorn. 

R. B. 



CXLIII. 
TO . 

Mossgiel, Friday Morning. 

The language of refusal is to me the most difficult language on 
earth, and you are the man in the world, excepting one of Right 
Honourable designation, to whom it gives me the greatest pain 
to hold such language. My brother has already got money, and 
shall want nothing in my power to enable him to fulfil his engage- 
ment with you ; but to be security on so large a scale, even for a 
brother, is what I dare not do, except I were in such circumstances 
of life as that the worst that might happen could not greatly injure 
me. 

I never wrote a letter which gave me so much pain in my life, as 
1 know the unhappy consequences : I shall incur the displeasure 
of a gentleman for whom I have the highest respect, and to whom 
I am deeply obliged. I am ever, sir, your obliged and very 
humble servant, Robert Burns. 



CXLIV. 
TO MR WILLIAM DUNBAR, EDINBURGH. 

Madchlixe, 1th April 1788. 

I have not delayed so long to write you, my much respected 
friend, because I thought no farther of my promise. I have long 
since given up that kind of formal correspondence, where one sits 
down irksomely to write a letter, because we think we are in duty 
bound so to do. 

I have been roving over the country, as the farm I have taken 
is forty miles from this place, hiring servants and preparing 
matters ; but most of all, I am earnestly busy to bring about a 
revolution in my own mind. As, till within these eighteen months, 
I never was the wealthy master of ten guineas, my knowledge oi 
business is to learn ; add to this, my late scenes of idleness and 
dissipation have enervated my mind to an alarming degree. Skill 
in the sober science of life is my most serious and hourly study. 
I have dropt all conversation and all reading (prose reading) but 
what tends in some way or other to my serious aim. Except one 
worthy young fellow, I have not one single correspondent in Edin- 
burgh. You have indeed kindly made me an offer of that kind. 
The world of wits, and gens comme il faut which I lately left, and 



BURNS' LETTERS, 44i) 



with whom I never again will intimately mix — from that port, 
sir, I expect your Gazette : what Us beaux esprits are saying, what 
they are doing, and what they are singing. Any sober intelli- 
gence from my sequestered walks of life ; any droll original ; any 
passing remark, important forsooth, because it is mine ; any little 
poetic effort, however embryoth ; these, my dear sir, are all you 
have to expect from me. When I talk of poetic efforts, I must 
have it always understood that I appeal from your wit and taste 
to your friendship and good-nature. The first would be my 
favourite tribunal, where I defied censure ; but the last, where I 
declined justice. 

I have scarcely made a single distich since I saw you. When 
I meet with an old Scots air that has any facetious idea in its 
name, I have a peculiar pleasure in following out that idea for a 
verse or two. 

I trust that this will find you in better health than I did last 
time I called for you. A few lines from you, directed to me at 
Mauchline, were it but to let me know how you are, will set my 
mind a good deal [at rest.] Now, never shun the idea of writing 
me, because perhaps you may be out of humour or spirits. I could 
give you a hundred good consequences attending a dull letter ; 
one, for example, and the remaining ninety-nine some other time 
—it will always serve to keep in countenance, my much respected 
sir, your obliged friend and humble servant, R. B. 



CXLV. 
TO MISS CHALMERS. 

Mauchlixe, 7th April 178S. 

I am indebted to you and Miss Nimmo for letting me know 
Miss Kennedy. Strange I how apt we are to indulge prejudices 
in our judgments of one another ! Even I, who pique myself on 
my skill in marking characters — because I am too proud of my 
character as a man to be dazzled in my judgment for glaring 
wealth, and too proud of my situation as a poor man to be biassed 
against squalid poverty — I was unacquainted witk Miss K.'s very 
uncommon worth. 

I am going on a good deal progressive in mon grand but — the 
sober science of life. I have lately made some sacrifices, for which, 
were I vivd voce with you to paint the situation and recount the 
circumstances, you would applaud me. R. B. 



ISO burns' letters. 



CXLVI. 

TO MR JAMES SMITH, AVON PRINTFIELD, 
LINLITHGOW. 

Mauchline, April 28, 1788. 

Beware of your Strasburgh, my good sir ! Look on this as 
the opening of a correspondence, like the opening of a twenty- 
four gun battery ! 

There is no understanding a man properly without knowing j 
something of his previous ideas — that is to say, if the man has j 
any ideas ; for I know many who, in the animal-muster, pass for j 
men, that are the scanty masters of only one idea on any given i 
subject, and by far the greatest part of your acquaintances and 
mine can barely boast of ideas, 1*25 — 1*5 — 175 (or some such 
fractional matter) ; so, to let you a little into the secrets of my 
pericranium, there is, you must know, a certain clean-limbed, 
handsome, bewitching young hussy of your acquaintance, to 
whom I have lately and privately given a matrimonial title to 
my corpus. 

M Bode a robe and wear it, 
Bode a poke and bear it," 

says the wise old Scots adage 1 I hate to presage ill-luck ; and 
as my girl has been doubly kinder to me than even the best of 
women usually are to their partners of our sex, in similar circum- 
stances, I reckon on twelve times a brace of children against I 
celebrate my twelfth wedding-day. * * * 

" Light's heartsome," quo' the wife when she was stealing sheep. 
You see what a lamp I have hung up to lighten your paths, when 
you are idle enough to explore the combinations and relations of 
my ideas. 'Tis now as plain as a pikestaff why a twenty-four 
gun battery was a metaphor I could readily employ. 

Now for business. I intend to present Mrs Burns with a printed 
shawl, an article of which I daresay you have variety : 'tis my 
first present to her since I have irrevocably called her mine ; and 
I have a kind of whimsical wish to get the first said present from 
an old and much-valued friend of hers and mine— ^ a trusty Trojan, 
whose friendship I count myself possessed of as a liferent lease. 

Look on this letter as a " beginning of sorrows ;" I will write 
you till your eyes ache reading nonsense. 

Mrs Burns ('tis only her private designation) begs her best 
compliments to you. R. B. 

CXLYII. 

TO MR6 DUNLOP. 

Mauchline. 28th April 1788. 
Madam, — Your powers of reprehension must be great indeed^ 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



fig I assure you they made my heart ache with penitential pangs, 
even though I -was really not guilty. As I commence farmer at 
Whitsunday, you will easily guess I must be pretty busy ; but 
that is not all. As I got the offer of the Excise business without 
solicitation, and as it costs me only six months [weeks ?] attend- 
ance for instructions to entitle me to a commission — which com- 
mission lies by me, and at any future period, on my simple petition, 
can be resumed — I thought five-and-thirty pounds a-year was 
no bad dernier resort for a poor poet, if fortune in her jade tricks 
should kick him down from the little eminence to which she ha3 
lately helped him up. 

For this reason, I am at present attending these instructions, to 
have them completed before Whitsunday. Still, madam, I pre- 
pared with the sincerest pleasure to meet you at the Mount, and 
came to my brother's on Saturday night, to set out on Sunday ; 
but for some nights preceding I had slept in an apartment where 
the force of the winds and rains was only mitigated by being 
sifted through numberless apertures in the windows, walls, &c. 
In consequence I was on Sunday, Monday, and part of Tuesday, 
unable to stir out of bed, with all the miserable effects of a violent 
cold. 

You see, madam, the truth of the French maxim, le vrai n'est 
vas toujours le vraisemblable. Your last was so full of expostulation, 
and was something so like the language of an offended friend, that 
I began to tremble for a correspondence which I had with grateful 
pleasure set down as one of the greatest enjoyments of my future 
life. 

Your books have delighted me; Virgil, Dryden, and Tasso, 
were all equally strangers to me ; but of this more at large in my 
next. R. B. 



(VI.*) 
TO MR BURNESS, MOXTROSE. 

Lochlea, 21st June 1783. 
Dear Sir,— My father received your favour of the 10th current, 
and as he has been for some months very poorly in health, and is, 
in his own opinion (and indeed in almost everybody's else), in a 
dying condition, he has only, with great difficulty, written a few 
farewell lines to each of his brothers-in-law. For this melancholy 
reason I now hold the pen for him, to thank you for your kind 
letter, and to assure you, sir, that it shall not be my fault if my 
father's correspondence in the north die with him. My brother 
writes to John Caird, and to him I must refer you for the news of 
cur family. 

I shall only trouble you with a few particulars relative to 
fche wretched state of this country. Our markets are exceedingly 
* This letter should have boen inserted at p. 343. 

2F 



#5? BURNS' LETTERS. 



high — oatmeal, 17d. and 18d. per peck, and not to be got even at 
that price. We have indeed been pretty well supplied with quan- 
tities of white peas from England and elsewhere, but that resource 
is likely to fail us, and what will become of us then, particularly 
the very poorest sort, Heaven only knows. This country, till of 
late, was nourishing incredibly in the manufacture of silk, lawn, 
and carpet-weaving ; and we are still carrying on a good deal 
in that way, but much reduced from what it was. We had also 
a fine trade in the shoe way, but now entirely ruined, and hun- 
dreds driven to a starving condition on account of it. Farm- 
ing is also at a very low ebb with us. Our lands, generally speak- 
ing, are mountainous and barren ; and our landholders, full of 
ideas of farming gathered from the English and the Lothians, and 
other rich soils in Scotland, make no allowance for the odds of 
the quality of land, and consequently stretch us much beyond 
what in the event we will be found able to pay. We are also 
much at a loss for want of proper methods in our improvements 
of farming. Necessity compels us to leave our old schemes, and 
few of us have opportunities of being well informed in new ones. 
In 3hort, my dear sir, since the unfortunate beginning of this 
American war, and its as unfortunate conclusion, this country has 
been, and still is, decaying very fast. Even in higher life, a couple 
of our Ayrshire noblemen, and the major part of our knights and 
squires, are all insolvent. A miserable job of a Douglas, Heron, 
and Co's bank, which no doubt you have heard of, has undone num- 
bers of them ; and imitating English and French, and other foreign 
luxuries and fopperies, has ruined as many more. There is a 
great trade of smuggling carried on along our coasts, which, how- 
ever destructive to the interests of the kingdom at large, certainly 
enriches this corner of it, but too often at the expense of our 
morals. However, it enables individuals to make, at least for a 
time, a splendid appearance ; but Fortune, as is usual with her 
when she is uncommonly lavish of her favours, is generally even 
with them at the last ; and happy were it for numbers of them if 
she would leave them no worse than when she found them. 

My mother sends you a small present of a cheese ; 'tis but a 
very little one, as our last year's stock is sold off. . . . 

I shall conclude this long letter with assuring you that I shall 
be very happy to hear from you, or any of our friends in your 
country, when opportunity serves. 

My father sends you, probably for the last time in this world, 
his warmest wishes for your welfare and happiness ; and my 
mother and the rest of the family desire to enclose their kind 
compliments to you, Mrs Burness, and the rest of your family, 
&\ong with those of, dear sir, your affectionate cousin, R. B. 



BURNS' LETTERS. *58 



CXLVIII. 

TO PROFESSOR STEWART. 

Mauchline, 3c? May 1V88. 

Sir, — I enclose you one or two more of my bagatelles. If the 
fervent wishes of honest gratitude have any influence with that 
great unknown BeiDg who frames the chain of causes and events, 
prosperity and happiness will attend your visit to the Continent, 
and return you safe to your native shore. 

Wherever I am, allow me, sir, to claim it as my privilege to 
acquaint you with my progress in my trade of rhymes ; as I am 
sure I could say it with truth, that, next to my little fame, and 
the having it in my power to make life more comfortable to those 
whom Nature has made dear to me, I shall ever regard your 
countenance, your patronage, your friendly good offices, as the 
most valued consequence of my late success in life. R. B. 



CXLIX. 
TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Mauchline, Wh May 1788. 
Madam, — Dryden's Virgil has delighted me. I do not know 
whether the critics will agree with me, but the Georgics are to me 
by far the best of Virgil. It is indeed a species of writing entirely 
new to me, and has filled my head with a thousand fancies of 
emulation : but, alas ! when I read the Georgics, and then survey 
my own powers, 'tis like the idea of a Shetland pony, drawn up 
by the side of a thorough-bred hunter, to start for the plate. I 
own I am disappointed in the ^Eneid. Faultless correctness may 
please, and does highly please, the lettered critic ; but to that 
awful character I have not the most distant pretensions. I do not 
know whether I do not hazard my pretensions to be a critic of any 
kind, when I say that I think Virgil, in many instances, a servile 
copier of Homer. If I had the Odyssey by me, I could parallel 
many passages where Virgil has evidently copied, but by no means 
improved, Homer. Nor can I think there is anything of this 
owing to the translators ; for, from everything I have seen of 
Dryden, I think him, in genius and fluency of language, Pope's 
master. I have not perused Tasso enough to form an opinion — 
in some future letter you shall have my ideas of him ; though I 
am conscious my criticisms must be very inaccurate and imperfect, 
&3 there I have ever felt and lamented my want of learning most. 

R.B. 



4A4 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



CL. 

TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE. 

Mauchline, May 26, 1788. 

My dear Friend, — I am two kind letters in your debt ; but I 
have been from home, and horridly busy, buying and preparing 
for my farming business, over and above the plague of my Excise 
instructions, which this week will finish. 

As I flatter my wishes that I foresee many future years' corres- 
pondence between us, 'tis foolish to talk of excusing dull epistles : 
a dull letter may be a very kind one. I have the pleasure to tell 
you that I have been extremely fortunate in all my buyings and 
bargainings hitherto — Mrs Burns not excepted ; which title I now 
avow to the world. I am truly pleased with this last affair ; it 
has indeed added to my anxieties for futurity, but it has given a 
stability to my mind and resolutions unknown before ; and the 
poor girl has the most sacred enthusiasm of attachment to me, 
and has not a wish but to gratify my every idea of her deport- 
ment. I am interrupted.— Farewell 1 my dear sir. R. B. 



CLi. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

27th May 1788. 

Madam, — 1 have been torturing my pnilosophy to no purpose, 
to account for that kind partiality of yours, which has followed 
me, in my return to the shade of life, with assiduous benevolence 
Often did I regret, in the fleeting hours of my late Will-o'-Wisp 
appearance, that " here I had no continuing city ;" and, but for 
the consolation of a few solid guineas, could almost, lament the 
time that a momentary acquaintance with wealth and splendour 
put me so much out of conceit with the sworn companions of my 
road through life — insignificance and poverty. 

There are few circumstances relating to the unequal distribu- 
tion of the good things of this life that give me more vexation (I 
mean in what I see around me) than the importance the opulent 
bestow on their trifling family affairs, compared with the very 
same things on the contracted scale of a cottage. Last afternoon 
I had the honour to spend an hour or two at a good woman's fire- 
side, where the planks that composed the floor were decorated with 
a splendid carpet, and the gay table sparkled with silver and 
china. 'Tis now about term-day, and there has been a revolution 
among those creatures, who, though in appearance partakers, and 
equally noble partakers, of the same nature with madame, are 
from time to time — their Bervos, their sinews, their health. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 45fi 



itrength, wisdom, experience, geniu% time, nay, a good part of 
their very thoughts—sold for months and years, not only to the 
necessities,, the conveniences, but the caprices of the important 
few. We talked of the insignificant creatures ; nay, notwith- 
standing their general stupidity and rascality, did some of the 
poor devils the honour to commend them. But light be the turf 
upon his breast who taught " Reverence thyself." We looked 
down on the unpolished wretches, their impertinent wives and 
clouterly brats, as the lordly bull does on the little dirty ant-hill, 
whose puny inhabitants he crushes in the carelessness of his 
ramble, or tosses in the air in the wantonness of his pride. 

R. B. 



CLII. 
TO MRS DUNLOP. 

AT MR DUNLOP'S, HADDINGTON. 

Ellisland, 13th June 1758, 

" Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see, 
My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee; 
Still to my friend it turns with ceaseless pain, 
And drags, at each remove, a lengthen'd chain." 

Goldsmith. 

This is the second day, my honoured friend, that I have beer 
on my farm. A solitary inmate of an old, smoky spence ; far 
from every object I love, or by whom I am beloved ; nor any 
acquaintance older than yesterday, except Jenny Geddes, the old 
mare I ride on ; while uncouth cares and novel plans hourly 
insult my awkward ignorance and bashful inexperience. There 
is a foggy atmosphere native to my soul in the hour of care, con- 
sequently the dreary objects seem larger than the life. Extreme 
sensibility, irritated and prejudiced on the gloomy side by a series 
of misfortunes and disappointments, at that period of my existence 
when the soul is laying in her cargo of ideas for the voyage of 
life, is, I believe, the principal cause of this unhappy frame of 
mind. 

M The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer? 
Or what need he regard his single woes ?" &c. 

Your surmise, madam, is just ; I am indeed a husband. * * * 
To jealousy or infidelity I am an equal stranger. My preserva- 
tive from the first is the most thorough consciousness of her senti- 
ments of honour, and her attachment to me : my antidote against 
Ihe last is my long and deep-rooted affection for her. 

In housewife matters, of aptness to learn and activity to exe- 
cute, she is eminently mistress ; and during my absence in Niths- 
dale, she is regularly and constantly apprentice to my mother and 
listers in their dairy and other rural business. 



456 



BURNS LETTERS. 



The Muses must not be offended when I tell them the concerns 
of my wife and family will, in my mind, always take the pas ; but 
I assure them their ladyships will ever come next in ^lace. 

You are right that a bachelor state would have insured me 
more friends ; but, from a cause you will easily guess, conscious 
peace in the enjoyment of my own mind, and unmistrusting con- 
fidence in approaching my God, would seldom have been of the 
number. 

I found a once much-loved and still much-loved female, literally 
and truly cast out to the mercy of the naked elements ; but I 
enabled her to purchase a shelter — there is no sporting with a 
fellow-creature's happiness or misery. 

The most placid good-nature and sweetness of disposition ; a 
warm heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to love me ; 
vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best ad- 
vantage by a more than commonly handsome figure ; these, I 
think, in a woman, may make a good wife, though she should 
never have read a page but the Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testament, nor have danced in a brighter assembly than a penny 
pay wedding. R. B. 



CLIII. 



TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE. 

Ellislaxd, June 14, 1788. 

This is now the third day, my dearest sir, that I have sojourned 
in these regions; and during these three days you have occupied 
more of my thoughts than in three weeks preceding : in Ayrshire 
I have several variations of friendship's compass, here it points 
invariably to the pole. My farm gives me a good many uncouth 
cares and anxieties, but 1 hate the language of complaint. Job, 
or some one of his friends, says well — " Why should a living man 
complain ?" 

I have lately been much mortified with contemplating an un- 
lucky imperfection in the very framing and construction of my 
soul ; namely, a blundering inaccuracy of her olfactory organs in 
hitting the scent of craft or design in my fellow-creatures. I do 
not mean any compliment to my ingenuousness, or to hint that the 
defect is in consequence of the unsuspicious simplicity of conscious 
truth and honour : I take it to be, in some way or other, an im- 
perfection in the mental sight ; or, metaphor apart, some modi- 
fication of dulness. In two or three instances lately I have been 
most shamefully out. 

I have all along hitherto, in the warfare of life, been bred to 
arms among the light-horse — the picket-guards of fancy — a kind 
of hussars and Highlanders of the brain ; but I am firmly re- 



BURNS' LETTERS. 457 



lolved to sell out of these giddy battalions, who have no ideas of a 
battle but fighting the foe, or of a siege but storming the town. 
Cost what it will, J am determined to buy in among the grave 
squadrons of heavy-armed thought, or the artillery corps of plod- 
ding contrivance. 

What books are you reading, or what is the subject of your 
thoughts, besides the great studies of your profession ? You said 
something about religion in your last. I don't exactly remember 
what it was, as the letter is in Ayrshire ; but I thought it not 
only prettily said, but nobly thought. You will make a noble 
fellow if once you were married. I make no reservation of your 
being well married : you have so much sense and knowledge of 
human nature, that, though you may not realise perhaps the 
ideas of romance, yet you will never be ill married. 

"Were it not for the terrors of my ticklish situation respecting 
provision for a family of children, I am decidedly of opinion that 
the step I have taken is vastly for my happiness. As it is, I look 
to the Excise scheme as a certainty of maintenance. A mainte- 
nance! — luxury to what either Mrs Burns or I was born to. Adieu! 

R. B. 



CLIY. 

TO MR ROBERT AIXSLIE. 

Ellislasd, BOth June 1788L 
My dear Sir — I just now received your brief epistle ; and, to 
take vengeance on your laziness, I have, you see, taken a long 
sheet of writing-paper, and have begun at the top of the page, 
intending to scribble on to the very last corner. 

I am vexed at that affair of the * * *, but dare not enlarge 
on the subject until you send me your direction, as I suppose 
that will be altered on your late master and friend's death. I 
am concerned for the old fellow's exit only as I fear it may be to 
your disadvantage in any respect; for an old man's dying, except 
he have been a very benevolent character, or in some particular 
situation of life that the welfare of the poor or the helpless de- 
pended on him, I think it an event of the most trifling moment 
to the world. Man is naturally a kind, benevolent animal, 
but he is dropped into such a needy situation here in this 
vexatious world, and has such a hungry, growling, multiplying 
pack of necessities, appetites, passions, and desires about him, 
ready to devour him for want of other food, that in fact he must 
lay aside his cares for others that he may look properly to him- 
self. You have been imposed upon in paying Mr Miers for the 
profile of a Mr H. I did not mention it in my letter to you, nor 
did I ever give Mr Miers any such order, I have no objection 



458 BURNS' LETTERS. 



to lose the money, but I will not have any such profile in my 
possession. 

I desired the carrier to pay you, but as I mentioned only fifteen 
shillings to him, I will rather enclose you a guinea-note. I have 
it not, indeed, to spare here, as I am only a sojourner in a strange 
land in this place ; but in a day or two I return to Mauchline, 
and there I have the bank-notes through the house like salt- 
permits. 

There is a great degree of folly in talking unnecessarily of 
one's private affairs. I have just now been interrupted by one of 
my new neighbours, who has made himself absolutely contemp- 
tible in my eyes by his silly garrulous pruriency. I know it has 
been a fault of my own too ; but from this moment I abjure it as 
I would the service of hell 1 Your poets, spendthrifts, and other 
fools of that kidney, pretead^ forsooth, to crack their jokes on 
prudence ; but 'tis a squalid vagabond glorying in his rags. 
Still, imprudence respecting money matters is much more par- 
donable than imprudence respecting character. I have no objec- 
tion to prefer prodigality to avarice in some few instances : but I 
appeal to your observation if you have not met, and often met, 
with the same disingenuousness, the same hollow-hearted insin- 
cerity and disintegrative depravity of principle, in the hackneyed 
victims of profusion, as in the unfeeling children of parsimony. 
I have every possible reverence for the much-talk ed-of world be- 
yond the grave, and I wish that which piety believes, and virtue 
deserves, maybe all matter of fact. But in things belonging to, and 
terminatingin this present scene of existence, man has serious and 
interesting business on hand. Whether a man shall shake hands 
with welcome in the distinguished elevation of respect, or shrink 
from contempt in the abject corner of insignificance : whether he 
shall wanton under the tropic of plenty — at least enjoy himself in 
the comfortable latitudes of easy convenience — or starve in the 
arctic circle of dreary poverty ; whether he shall rise in the 
manly consciousness of a self-approving mind, or sink beneath a 
galling load of regret and remorse — these are alternatives of the 
last moment. 

You see how I preach. You used occasionally to sermonise 
too ; I wish you would in charity favour me with a sheet full in 
your own way. I admire the close of a letter Lord Bolingbroke 
writes to Dean Swift : — " Adieu, dear Swift ! with all thy faults 
I love thee entirely ; make an effort to love me with all mine !" 
Humble servant, and all that trumpery, is now such a prostituted 
business, that honest friendship, in her sincere way, must have 
recourse to her primitive, simple, farewell ! R. B. 



burns' letters. £59 



CLV. 

TO MR PETER HILL. 

Mauchlene, 18th July 1788. 
You injured me, my dear sir, in your construction of the cause 
of my silence. From Ellis! and in Nithsdale to Mauchline in 
Kyle is forty and five miles. There, a house a-building, and farm 
enclosures and improvements to tend ; here, a new — not indeed 
so much a new as a young wife ; — sir, could my dearest brother 
expect a regular correspondence from me ! . . . I am certain 
that my liberal-minded and much-respected friend would have 
acquitted me, though I had obeyed to the very letter that famous 
statute among the irrevocable decrees of the Medes and Persians, 
not to ask petition, for forty days, of either God or man, save thee 

Queen, only ! 

I am highly obliged to you, my dearest sir, for your kind, your 
elegant compliments on my becoming one of that most respectable, 
that truly venerable corps, — they who are, without a metaphor, 
the fathers of posterity. . . . 

Your book came safe, and I am going to trouble you with fur- 
ther commissions. I call it troubling you, because I want only 
books — the cheapest way the best ; so you may have to hunt for 
them in the evening auctions. I want Smollett's works, for the 
sake of his incomparable hur^r. I have already Roderick Ran- 
dom, and Humphrey Clinker* Peregrine Tickle, Launcelot Greaves, 
and Ferdinand Count Fathom, I still want ; but, as I said, the 
veriest ordinary copies will serve me. I am nice only in the ap- 
pearance of my poets. I forget the price of Cowper's Poems, but 

1 believe I must have them. I saw the other day proposals for a 
publication entitled Banks's New and Complete Christian's Family 
Bible, printed for C. Cooke, Paternoster Row, London. He pro- 
mises at least to give in the work, I think it is three hundred and 
odd engravings, to which he has put the names of the first artists 
in London. You will know the character of the performance, 
as some numbers of it are published : and if it is really what it 
pretends to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send me the 
jifcblished numbers. 

Let me hear from you your first leisure minute, and trust me, 
you shall in future have no reason to complain of my silence 
The dazzling perplexity of novelty will dissipate and leave me 
to pursue my course in the quiet path of methodical routine. 

R. B. * 



460 BURNS' LETTERS. 

CLVI. 
TO MR GEORGE LOCKHART, 

MERCHANT, GLASGOW. 

Mauchline, 18th July 1788. 

My dear Sir,— I am just going for Nithsdale, else I would 
certainly have transcribed some of my rhyming things for you. 
The Miss Baillies I have seen in Edinburgh. " Fair and lovely 
are thy works, Lord God Almighty I Who would not praise thee 
for these thy gifts in thy goodness to the sons of men !" It needed 
not your fine taste to admire them. I declare, one day I had the 
honour of dining at Mr Baillie's, I was almost in the predicament 
of the children of Israel, when they could not look on Moses' face 
for the glory that shone in it when he descended from Mount 
Sinai. 

I did once write a poetic address from the Falls of Bruar to his 
Grace of Athole when I was in the Highlands. "When you return 
to Scotland let me know, and I will send such of my pieces as 
pleases myself best. I return to Mauchline in about ten days. 

My compliments to Mr Purden. I am in truth, but at present 
in haste, yours, R. B. 



CLYIL 
TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Mauchline, August 2, 1788. 

Honoured Madam, — Your kind letter welcomed me yester- 
night to Ayrshire. I am indeed seriously angry with you at the 
quantum of your luckpenny ; but, vexed and hurt as I was, I 
could not help laughing very heartily at the noble lord's apology 
for the missed napkin. 

I would write to you from Nithsdale, and give you my direction 
there, but I have scarce an opportunity of calling at a post-office 
once in a fortnight. I am six miles from Dumfries, am scarcely 
ever in it myself, and as yet have little acquaintance in the neigh- 
bourhood. Besides, I am now very busy on my farm, building a 
dwelling-house ; as at present I am almost an evangelical man in 
Nithsdale, for I have scarce " where to lay my head." 

There are some passages in your last that brought tears in my 
eyes. " The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger inter- 
*meddleth not therewith." The repository of these " sorrows of the 
heart" is a kind of sanctum sanctorum; and 'tis only a chosen 
friend, apd that, too, at particular sacred times, who dares enter 
into them : — 

" Heaven oft tears the bosom-chords 
That nature finest strung." 



BURNS LETTERS. 



You will excuse this quotation for the sake of the author. In- 
stead of entering on this subject farther, I shall transcribe you a 
few lines I wrote in a hermitage belonging to a gentleman in my 
Xithsdale neighbourhood (p. 136). They are almost the only 
favours the Muses have conferred on me in that country. . . . 

Since I am in the way of transcribing, the following were the 
production of yesterday as I jogged through the wild hills of Xew 
Cumnock. I intend inserting them, or something like them, in 
an epistle I am going to write to the gentleman on whose friend- 
ship my Excise hopes depend — Mr Graham of Fintry, one of the 
worthiest and most accomplished gentlemen not only of this coun- 
try, but, I will dare to say it, of this age. The following are just 
the first crude thoughts " unhousel'd, unanointed, unaneal'd :"■ — 

Pity the tuneful Muses' helpless train; 

Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main : 

The world were blest, did bliss on them depend; 

Ah, that "the friendly e'er should want a friend!* 

The little Fate bestows they share as soon; 

Unlike sage, proverb'd Wisdom's hard-wrung boon. 

Let Prudence number o'er each sturdy son, 

Who life and wisdom at one race begun; 

Who feel by reason and who give by rule; 

Instinct's a brute and sentiment a fool! 

Who make poor icill do wait upon I should • 

We own they're prudent, but who owns they're good ? 

Te wise ones, hence! ye hurt the social eye; 

God's image rudely etched on base alloy ! 

But come * * * * 

Here the Muse left me. I am astonished at what you tell me of 
Anthony's writing me. I never received it. Poor fellow ! you vex 
me much by telling me that he is unfortunate. I shall be in Ayr- 
shire ten days from this date. I have just room for an old Roman 
farewell. R. B. 



CLVIII. 
TO MRS DUXLOP. 

JIauchltxe, August 10, 1788. 

My much-honoured Friend.— Yours of the 24th June in 
before me. I found it, as well as another valued friend — my wife 
—waiting to welcome me to Ayrshire : I met both with the sin- 
cerest pleasure. 

"When I write you, madam, I do not sit down to answer every 
paragraph of yours, by echoing every sentiment, like the faithful 
Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, answering a 
speech from the best of kings ! I express myself in the fulness of 
my heart, and may perhaps be guilty of neglecting some of your 
kind inquiries ; but not from your very odd reason, that I do not 
read your letters. All your epistles for several months have cost 



<62 BURNS' LETTERS. 



rne nothing except a swelling throb of gratitude, or a deep-felt 
sentiment of veneration. 

I like your way in your churchyard lucubrations. Thoughts 
that are the spontaneous result of accidental situations, either 
respecting health, place, or company, have often a strength and 
always an originality that would in vain be looked for in fancied 
circumstances and studied paragraphs. For me, I have often 
thought of keeping a letter in progression by me, to send you when 
the sheet was written out. Now I talk of sheets, I must tell you 
my reason for writing to you on paper of this kind is my pruriency 
of writing to you at large. A page of post is on such a dis-social, 
narrow-minded scale, that I cannot abide it ; and double letters, 
at least in my miscellaneous reverie manner, are a monstrous tax 
in a close correspondence. R. B. 



CLIX. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 16th August 1788. 
I AM in a fine disposition, my honoured friend, to send you an 
elegiac epistle, and want only genius to make it quite Shen- 
stonian :— 

•* Why droops my heart with fancied woes forlorn* 
Why sinks my soul beneath each wintry sky ?" 

My increasing cares in this as yet strange country — gloomy con- 
jectures in the dark vista of futurity — consciousness of my own 
inability for the struggle of the world — my broadened mark to 
misfortune in a wife and children — I could indulge these reflec- 
tions till my humour should ferment into the most acid chagrin, 
that would corrode the very thread of life. 

To counterwork these baneful feelings I have sat down to write 
to you; as I declare upon my soul I always find that the most 
sovereign balm for my wounded spirit. 

I was yesterday at Mr Miller's [at Dalswinton] to dinner, for 
the first time. My reception was quite to my mind : from the lady 
of the house quite flattering. She sometimes hits on a couplet or 
two impromptu. She repeated one or two to the admiration of all 
present. My suffrage as a professional man was expected ; I for 
once went agonizing over the belly of my conscience. Pardon me, 
ye, my adored household gods, independence of spirit, and integrity 
of soul I In the course of conversation Johnson's Musical Mu- 
eeum, a collection of Scottish songs with the music, was talked 
of. AVe got a song on the harpsichord, beginning, 

" Raving winds around her blowing." 

The air was much admired : the lady of the house asked me whose 
?rere the vords. " Mine, madam— they aro indeed my verj best 



BURNS' letters. 



468 



verses i" she took not the smallest notice of them ! The old Scot- 
tish proverb says well, " King's caff is better than ither folk's 
corn." I was going to make a New-Testament quotation about 
" casting pearls," but that would be too virulent, for the lady is 
actually a woman of sense and taste. * * * 

After all that has been said on the other side of the question, 
man is by no means a happy creature. I do not speak of the 
selected few, favoured by partial Heaven, whose souls are tuned 
to gladness amid riches, and honours, and prudence, and wisdom. 
I speak of the neglected many, whose nerves, whose sinews, whose 
days, are sold to the minions of fortune. 

If I thought you had never seen it, I would transcribe for you a 
stanza of an old Scottish ballad, called The Life and Age of Man ,• 
beginning thus : — 

** 'Twas in the sixteen hundredth year 
Of God and fifty-three 
Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear, 
As writings testifie." 

I had an old grand-uncle with whom my mother lived a while 
in her girlish years : the good old man, for such he was, was long 
blind ere he died, during which time his highest enjoyment was 
to sit down and cry, while my mother would sing the simple old 
song of The Life and Age of Man. 

It is this way of thinking — it is these melancholy truths — that 
make religion so precious to the poor, miserable children of men. 
If it is a mere phantom, existing only in the heated imagination 
of enthusiasm, 

*' What truth on earth so precious as the lie?" 

My idle reasonings sometimes make me a little sceptical, but the 
necessities of my heart always give the cold philosophisings the 
lie. Who looks for the heart weaned from earth ; the soul affi- 
anced to her God ; the correspondence fixed with heaven ; the 
pious supplication and devout thanksgiving, constant as the vicis- 
situdes of even and morn ; who thinks to meet with these in the 
court, the palace, in the glare of public life ? No : to find them 
in their precious importance and divine efficacy, we must search 
among the obscure recesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty, 
and distress. 

I am sure, dear madam, you are now more than pleased with the 
length of my letters. I return to Ayrshire middle of next week ; 
and it quickens my pace to think that there will be a letter from 
you waiting me there. I must be here again very soon for my 
harvest. R. B. 



464 BURNS' LETTERS. 



ULiX. 
TO MR BEUGO, ENGRAVER, EDINBURGH. 

Ellisland, 9th Sept. 1788. 

My DEAR Sir, — There is not in Edinburgh above the number oi 
the graces whose letters would have given ine so much pleasure as 
yours of the 3d instant, which only reached me yesternight. 

I am here on my farm, busy with my harvest ; but for all that 
most pleasurable part of life called social communication, I am 
here at the very elbow of existence. The only things that are to 
be found in this country, in any degree of perfection, are stupidity 
and canting. Prose they only know in graces, prayers, &c, and 
the value of these they estimate, as they do their plaiding webs — 
by the ell ! As for the Muses, they hove as much an idea of a 
rhinoceros as of a poet. For my old capricious but good-natured 
hussy of a Muse— 

M By banks of Nith I sat and wept 
When Coila I thought on, 
In midst thereof I hung my harp 
The willow trees upon." 

I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my " darling 
Jean ;" and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my horny fist across 
my be-cobwebbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife 
throws her hand across the spokes of her spinning-wheel. 

I will send you the Fortunate Shepherdess as soon as I return to 
Ayrshire, for there I keep it with other precious treasure. I shall 
send it by a careful hand, as I would not for anything it should 
be mislaid or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevo- 
lence, or other grave Christian virtue ; 'tis purely a selfish gratifi- 
cation of my own feelings whenever I think of you. 

You do not tell me if you are going to be married. Depend 
upon it, if you do not make some foolish choice, it will be a very 
great improvement on the dish of life. I can speak from experi- 
ence, though my choice was as random as blind-man's buff. , . . 

If your better functions would give you leisure to write me, I 
should be extremely happy ; that is to say, if you neither keep 
nor look for a regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being 
obliged to write a leiter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week, 
at other times once a quarter. 

I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author 
you mention place a map of Iceland instead of his portrait before 
his works ; 'twas a glorious idea. 

Could you conveniently do me one thing ? — whenever you finish 
any head, I should like to have a proof-copy of it. I might tell 
you a long story about your fine genius ; but as what everybody 
knows cannot have escaped you, I shall not say one syllable 
about it. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



If you see Mr Nasmyth remember me to hina most respectfully, 
as he both loves and deserves respect ; though, if he would pay 
less respect to the mere carcass of greatness, I should think him 
much nearer perfection. R. B. 



CLXI. 

TO MISS CHALMERS, EDINBURGH. 

Ellisland, near Dumfries, Sept 16, 1788. 
Where are you ? and how are you ? and is Lady Mackenzie 
recovering her health ? — for I have had but one solitary letter 
from you. I will not think you have forgot me, madam; and 
for my part — 

M When thee, Jerusalem, I forget. 
. Skill part from my right hand 1" 

" My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea." 
I do not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among 
its fellows — rolling through the crowd without bearing away any 
mark or impression, except where they hit in hostile collision. 

I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather ; and 
as you and your sister once did me the honour of interesting your- 
selves much a Ytgard de moi f I sit down to beg the continuation 
of your goodness. I can truly say that, all the exterior of life 
apart, I never saw two whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings 
of my soul — I will not say more, but so much, as Lady Mackenzie 
and Miss Chalmers, When I think of you — hearts the best, minds 
the noblest of human kind— unfortunate even in the shades of life ; 
— when I think I haye met with you, and have lived more of real 
life with you in eight days than I can do with almost anybody 1 
meet with in eight years — when I think on the improbability of 
meeting you in this world again — I could sit down and cry like 
a child ! If ever you honoured me with a place in your esteem, 
I trust I can now plead more desert. I am secure against that 
crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas ! is less or more fatal to 
the native worth and purity of, I fear, the noblest souls ; and a 
late important step in my life has kindly taken me out of the way 
of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however overlooked in 
fashionable licence, or varnished in fashionable phrase ; are in- 
deed but lighter and deeper shades of villany. 

Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married " my Jean." 
This was not in consequence of the attachment of romance, per- 
haps ; but I had a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness 
or misery in my determination, and I durst not trifle with so impor- 
tant a deposit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I have not 
got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not 
sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school 
affectation ; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetess 



166 BURNS' LETTERS. 



temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the 
county. Mrs Burns believes, as firmly as her creed, that I am U 
plus bel esprit, et le plus honnete homme in the universe ; although 
she scarcely ever in her life, except the Scriptures of the Old and 
New Testament, and the Psalms of David in metre, 'spent five 
minutes together on either prose or verse. I must except also 
from this last a certain late publication of Scots poems, which she 
has perused very devoutly, and all the ballads in the country, as she 
has (Oh, the partial lover ! you will cry) the finest " wood-note wild" 
I ever heard. I am the more particular in this lady's character, 
as I know she will henceforth hare the honour of a share in your 
best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building my house ; 
for this hovel that I shelter in, while occasionally here, is pervious 
to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls ; and I am 
only preserved from being chilled to death by being suffocated with 
smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to 
expect ; but I believe in time it may be a saving bargain. You 
will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle edat, and bind 
every day after my reapers. 

To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going 
down, in a losing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my 
Excise instructions, and have my commission in my pocket for 
any emergency of fortune. If I could set all before your view, 
whatever disrespect you, in common with the world, have for this 
business, I know you would approve of my idea. 

I will make no apology, dear madam, for this egotistic detail ; 
I know you and your sister will be interested in every circum- 
stance of it. What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or 
the ideal trumpery of greatness ! When fellow-partakers of the 
same nature fear the same God, have the same benevolence of 
heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same detestation at every- 
thing dishonest, and the same scorn at everything unworthy — if 
they are not in the dependence of absolute beggary, in the name 
of common sense, are they not equals? And if the bias, the 
instinctive bias of their souls, run the same way, why may they 
not be friends ? 

When I may have an opportunity of sending this, Heaven only 
knows. Shenstone says : — " When one is confined idle within 
doors by bad weather, the best antidote against ennui is to read 
the letters of or write to one's friends ;" in that case, then, if the 
weather continues thus, I may scrawl you half a quire. 

I very lately — namely, since harvest began — wrote a poem, 
not in imitation, but in the manner of Pope's " Moral Epistles." 
It is only a short essay, just to try the strength of my Muse's 
pinion in that way. I will send you a copy of it when once I 
have heard from you. I have likewise been laying the founda- 
tion of some pretty large poetic works : how the superstructure 



BURNS' LETTERS. 46< 



will come on I leave to that great maker and marrer of project* 
— time. Johnson's collection of Scots songs is going on in the 
third volume ; and, of consequence, finds me a consumpt for a 
great deal of idle metre. One of the most tolerable things I have 
done in that way is two stanzas (p. 233) I made to an air a 
musical gentleman of my acquaintance (Captain Riddell), com- 
posed for the anniversary of his wedding-day, which happens on 
the 7th of November. 

I shall give over this letter for shame. If I should be seized 
with a scribbling fit before this goes away, I shall make it another 
letter; and then you may allow your patience a week's respite 
between the two. I have not room for more than the old, kind, 
hearty farewell ! 



To make some amends, mes chlres mesdames, for dragging you 
on to this second sheet, and to relieve a little the tiresomeness 
of my unstudied and uncorrectible prose, I shall transcribe you 
Eome of my late poetic bagatelles ; though I have, these eight 
or ten months, done very little that way. One day, in a hermi- 
tage on the banks of Nith, belonging to a gentleman in my 
neighbourhood, who is so good as give me a key at pleasure, X 
wrote as follows, supposing .myself the sequestered, venerable in- 
habitant of the lonely mansion. . . - R. B. 



CLXII. 

TO MR MORRISON, MAUOHL1NE. 

Ellislaxd, September 22, 1788. 
My dear Sir,— Necessity obliges me to go into my new house 
even before it be plastered. I will inhabit the one end until the 
other is finished. About three weeks more, I think, will at farthest 
be my time, beyond which I cannot stay in this present house. If 
ever you wish to deserve the blessing of him that was ready to 
perish ; if ever you were in a situation that a little kindness 
would have rescued you from many evils ; if ever you hope to 
find rest in future states of untried being — get these matters of 
mine ready. My servant will be out in the beginning of next 
week for the clock. My compliments to Mrs Morrison. I am, 
after all my tribulation, dear sir, yours, R 5 B. 



2g 



i«8 BURNS' LETTERS. 

CLXIII. 

TO MRS DUNLOP OF DUNLOP. 

Mauchline, 27th SepU 1788. 

I have received twins, dear madam, more than once, but 
scarcely ever with more pleasure than when I received yours of 
the 12th instant. To make myself understood : I had wrote to 
Mr Graham, enclosing my poem addressed to him, and the same 
post which favoured me with yours brought me an answer from 
him. It was dated the very day he had received mine ; and I 
am quite at a loss to say whether it was most polite or kind. 

Your criticisims, my honoured benefactress, are truly the work 
of a friend. They are not the blasting depredations of a canker- 
toothed caterpillar critic ; nor are they the fair statement of cold 
impartiality, balancing with unfeeling exactitude the pro and con 
of an author's merits : they are the judicious observations of ani- 
mated friendship, selecting the beauties of the piece. I am just 
arrived from Mthsdale, and will be here a fortnight. I was on 
horseback this morning by three o'clock ; for between my wift 
and my farm is just forty-six miles. As I jogged on in the dark, 
I was taken with a poetic fit as follows {Lamentation, p. 136). 

You will not send me your poetic rambles, Ibut, you see, I am 
no niggard of mine. I am sure your impromptus give me double 
pleasure; what falls from your pen can neither be unenter- 
taming in itself nor indifferent to me. 

The one fault you found is just, but I cannot please myself in 
an emendation. 

What a life of solicitude is the life of a parent ! You inte- 
rested me much in your young couple. 

I would not take my folio paper for this epistle, and now I re- 
peat it. I am so jaded with my dirty long journey that I was 
afraid to drawl into the essence of dulness with anything larger 
than a quarto, and so I must leave out another rhyme of this 
morning's manufacture. 

I will pay the sapientipotent George most cheerfully, to hear 
from you ere I leave Ayrshire. R. B, 



CLXIV. 

TO MR PETER HILL. 

Mauchline, 1st October 1788. 

I have been here in this country about three days, and all 

that time my chief- reading has been the Address to Lochhmond 

you were so obliging as to send to me. "Were I empannelled 

one of the author's jury, to determine his criminalty respecting 



BURNS' letters. 46*9 



the sin of poesy, my verdict should be " Guilty ! A poet of 
Nature's making !" It is an excellent method for improvement, 
and what I believe every poet does, to place some favourite 
classic author, in his own walks of study and composition, before 
him as a model. Though your author had not mentioned the 
name, I could have, at half a glance, guessed his model to be 
Thomson. Will my brother-poet forgive me if I venture to hint 
that his imitation of that immortal bard is in two or three places 
rather more servile than such a genius as his required ? — e. g. t 

** To soothe the maddening passions all to peace." 

Address. 

" To soothe the throbbing passions into peace." 

Thomson. 

I think the Address is, in simplicity, harmony, and elegance ol 
versification, fully equal to the Seasons. Like Thomson, too, he 
has looked into nature for himself: you meet with no copied 
description. One particular criticism I made at first reading : 
in no one instance has he said too much. He never flags in his 
progress, but, like a true poet of Nature's making, kindles in his 
course. His beginning is simple and modest, as if distrustful of 
the strength of his pinion ; only, I do not altogether like — 

l < Truth, 
The soul of every song that's nobly great." 

Fiction is the soul of many a song that is nobly great. Perhaps 
I am wrong; this may be but a prose criticism. Is not the phrase 
in line 7, page 6, " Great lake," too much vulgarized by every- 
day language for so sublime a poem ? 

4k Great mass of waters, theme for nobler song !" 

is perhaps no emendation. His enumeration of a comparison 
with other lakes is at once harmonious and poetic. Every reader's 
ideas must sweep the 

u Winding margin of an hundred miles.' 

The perspective that follows mountains blue — the imprisoned 
billows beating in vain — the wooded isles — the digression on the 
yew-tree — " Benlomond's lofty, cloud-enveloped head," &c, are 
beautiful. A thunder-storm is a subject which has been often 
tried, yet our poet in his grand picture has interjected a circum- 
stance, so far as I know, entirely original — 

H The gloom 
Deep seam'd with frequent streaks of moving fire." 

In his preface to the storm, " the glens how dark between," is 
noble Highland landscape ! The " rain ploughing the red mould," 
too, is beautifully fancied. " Benlomond's lofty, pathless top," 
is a good expression ; and the surrounding view from it is truly 
great : the 

M Silver mist 
Beneath the beaming sun," 



170 BURNS' LETTERS. 



is well described ; and here he has contrived to enliven his poem 
with a little of that passion which bids fair, I think, to usurp the 
modern Muses altogether. I know not how far this episode is 
beauty upon the whole, but the swain's wish to carry " some fain 
idea of the vision bright," to entertain her " partial listening ear,' 
is a pretty thought. But in my opinion the most beautiful pas- 
sages in the whole poem are the fowls crowding, in wintry frosts, 
to Lochlomond's u hospitable flood ;" their wheeling round, their 
lighting, mixing, diving, &c, and the glorious description of the 
sportsman. This last is equal to anything in the Seasons. The 
idea of " the floating tribes distant seen, far glistering to the 
moon,' provoking his eye as he is obliged to leave them, is a 
noble ray of poetic genius. " The howling winds," the M hideous 
roar " of " the white cascades," are all in the same style. 

I forget that while I am thus holding forth with the heedless 
warmth of an enthusiast, I am perhaps tiring you with nonsense. 
I must, however, mention that the last verse of the sixteenth 
page is one of the most elegant compliments I have ever seen. I 
must likewise notice that beautiful paragraph beginning " The 
gleaming lake, &c." I dare not go into the particular beauties oi 
the last two paragraphs, but they are admirably fine, and truly 
Ossianic. 

I must beg your pardon for this lengthened scrawl. I had no 
idea of it when I began — I should like to know who the autho? 
is; but whoever he be, please present him with my grateful 
thanks for the entertainment he has afforded me. 

A friend of mine desired me to commission for him two books— 
Letters on the Religion Essential to Man — a book you sent me be* 
fore ; and The World Unmasked, or, the Philosopher the Greatest 
Cheat. Send me them by the first opportunity. The Bible you 
sent me is truly elegant : I only wish it had been in two volumes, 

R.B. 



CLXV. 

TO THE EDITOR OF " THE STAR." 

November 8, 1788. 
Sir, — Notwithstanding the opprobrious epithets with which 
some of our philosophers and gloomy sectarians have branded oui 
nature — the principal of universal selfishness, the proneness to all 
evil, they have given us — still, the detestation in which inhuma- 
nity to the distressed, or insolence to the fallen, are held by all 
mankind, shows that they are not natives of the human heart. 
Even the unhappy partner of our kind who is undone (the bitter 
consequence of his follies or his crimes)— who but sympathises 



BURNS' LETTERS. 471 



with the miseries of this ruined profligate brother ? "We forget 
the injuries, and feel for the man. 

I went, last Wednesday, to my parish church, most cordially to 
join in grateful acknowledgment to the Author of all good for the 
consequent blessings of the glorious Revolution. To that auspi- 
cious event we owe no less than our liberties, civil and religious ; 
to it we are likewise indebted for the present royal family, the 
ruling features of whose administration have ever been mildness 
to the subject and tenderness of his rights. 

Bred and educated in revolution principles, — the principles of 
reason and common sense, — it could not be any silly political pre- 
judice which made my heart revolt at the harsh, abusive manner 
in which the reverend gentleman mentioned the House of Stuart, 
and which, I am afraid, was too much the language of the day. 
We may rejoice sufficiently in our deliverance from past evils 
without cruelly raking up the ashes of those whose misfortune it 
was, perhaps as much as their crime, to be the authors of those 
evils ; and we may bless God for all his goodness to us as a nation, 
without at the same time cursing a few ruined, powerless exiles, 
who only harboured ideas and made attempts that most of us 
would have done had we been in their situation. 

" The bloody and tyrannical House of Stuart " may be said 
with propriety and justice, when compared with the present royal 
family, and the sentiments of our days ; but is there no allowance 
to be made for the manners of the times ? Were the royal con- 
temporaries of the Stuarts more attentive to their subjects* rights ? 
Might not the epithets of " bloody and tyrannical" be, with at 
least equal justice, applied to the House of Tudor, of York, or any 
other of their predecessors. 

■The simple state of the case, sir, seems to be this : — At that 
period the science of government, the knowledge of the true rela- 
tion between king and subject, was, like other sciences and other 
knowledge, just in its infancy, emerging from dark ages of igno- 
rance and barbarity. 

The Stuarts only contended for prerogatives which they knew 
their predecessors enjoyed, and which they saw their contempo- 
raries enjoying : but these prerogatives were inimical to the hap- 
piness of a nation and the rights of subjects. 

In this contest between prince and people, the consequence of 
that light of science which had lately dawned over Europe — the 
monarch of France, for example, was victorious over the struggling 
liberties of his people : with us, luckily, the monarch failed, and 
his unwarrantable pretensions fell a sacrifice to our rights and 
happiness. Whether it was owing to the wisdom of leading indi- 
viduals, or to the justling of parties, I cannot pretend to deter- 
mine ; but, likewise, happily for us, the kingly power was shifted 
teto another branch of the family, who, as they owed the throna 



#72 BURNS' LETTERS. 



solely to the call of a free people, could claim nothing inconsistent 
with the covenanted terms which placed them there. 

The Stuarts have been condemned and laughed at for the folly 
and impracticability of their attempts in 1715 and 1745. That 
they failed, I bless God, but cannot join in the ridicule against 
them. Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders 
and commanders are often hidden until put to the touchstone of 
exigency ; and that there is a caprice of fortune, an omnipotence 
in particular accidents and conjectures of circumstances, which 
exalt us as heroes, or brand us as madmen, just as they are for or 
against us ? 

Man, Mr Publisher, is a strange, weak, inconsistent being. Who 
would believe, sir, that in this our Augustan age of liberality and 
refinement, while we seem so justly sensible and jealous of our 
rights and liberties, and animated with such indignation against 
the very memory of those who would have subverted them — that 
a certain people under'our national protection should complain, 
not against our monarch and a few favourite advisers, but against 
our whole legislative body, for similar oppression, and almost in 
the very same terms, as our forefathers did of the House of Stuart ? 
I will not, I cannot, enter into the merits of the case ; but I dare- 
say the American Congress in 1776 will be allowed to be as able 
and as enlightened as the English Convention was in 1688; and 
that their posterity will celebrate the centenary of their deliver- 
ance from us, as duly and sincerely as we do ours from the oppres- 
sive measures of the wrong-headed House of Stuart. 

To conclude, sir — let every man who has a tear for the many 
miseries incident to humanity feel for a family illustrious as any 
in Europe, and unfortunate beyond historic precedent ; and let 
every Briton (and particularly every Scotsman) who ever looked 
with reverential pity on the dotage of a parent, cast a veil over 
the fatal mistakes of the kings of his forefathers. R. B. 



CLXVI. 

TO MRS DUNLOP, AT MOREHAM MAIXS. 

Mauchline, lBth November 1788. 
Madam, — I had the very great pleasure of dining at Dunlop 
yesterday. Men are said to flatter women because they are weak 
■ — if it be so, poets must be weaker still ; for Misses R. and K. and 
Miss G-. M'K., with their flattering attentions and artful cempli* 
ments, absolutely turned my head. I own that they did not lard 
me over as many a poet does his patron ; but they so intoxicated 
me with their sly insinuations and delicate inuendos of compli- 



BURNS LETTERS. 



inent, that if it had not been for a lucky recollection how much 
additional weight and lustre your good opinion and friendship 
must give me in that circle, I had certainly looked upon myself 
as a person of no small consequence. I dare not say one word 
how much I was charmed with the Major's friendly welcome, 
elegant manner, and acute remark, lest I should be thought to 
balance my orientalisms of applause over against the finest quey* 
in Ayrshire which he made me a present of to help and adorn my 
farm-stock. As it was on Hallow-day, I am determined annually 
as that day returns, to decorate her horns with an ode of gratitude 
to :he family of Dunlop. 

So soon as I know of your arrival at Dunlop, I will take the 
first conveniency to dedicate a day, or perhaps two, to you and 
friendship, under the guarantee of the Major's hospitality. There 
will soon be threescore and ten miles of permanent distance 
between us.; and now that your friendship and friendly corres- 
pondence is entwisted with the heart-strings of my enjoyment of 
life, I must indulge myself in a happy day of " the feast of rea 
eon and the flow of soul." R. B. 



clxvii. 

to dr blacklock. 

Mauchlixe, November 15, 1788. 

Reverend and dear Sir, — As I hear nothing of your mo- 
tions, but that you are or were out of town, I do not know where 
this may find you, or whether it will find you at all. I wrote you 
a long letter, dated from the land of matrimony, in June ; but 
either it had not found you, or, what I dread more, it found you 
or Mrs Blacklock in too precarious a state of health and spirits 
to take notice of an idle packet. 

I have done many little things for Johnson since I had the plea- 
sure of seeing you; and I have finished one piece in the way of 
Pope's Moral Epistles ,• but from your silence I have everything 
to fear, so I have only sent you two melancholy things (Lamenta- 
tion, p. 136, and The Lazy Mist, p. 233), which I tremble lest they 
should too well suit the tone of your present feelings. 

In a fortnight I move, bag and baggage, to INTithsdale ; till then, 
my direction is at this place ; after that period it will be at Ellis- 
land, near Dumfries. It would extremely oblige me were it but 
half a line, to let me know how you are, and where you are. Can 
[ be indifferent to the fate of a man to whom I owe so much — a 
man whom I not only esteem but venerate ? 

My warmest good wishes and most respectful compliments tc 
Mrs Blacklock and Miss Johnson, if she is with ycu. 

* A young heifer. 



474 BURNS' LETTERS. 

I cannot, conclude without telling you that I am more audinort 
pleased with the step I took respecting " my Jean." Tw3 things, 
from myjhappy experience, I set down as apophthegms in life, — 
A wife's head is immaterial compared with her heart; and, 
* Virtue's (for wisdom, what poet pretends to it ?) ways are ways 
of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.'' Adieu ! R. B. 



CLXVIII. 
TO MR JAMES JOHNSON, ENGRAVER. 

Mauchlise, Xovember 15, 1788. 

My Dear Sir, — I have sent you two more songs. If you have 
got any tunes, or anything to correct, please send them by return 
of the carrier. 

I can easily see, my dear friend, that you will very probably 
have four volumes. Perhaps you may not find your account lu- 
cratively in this business ; but you are a patriot for the music of 
your country, and I am certain posterity will look on themselves 
as highly indebted to your public spirit. Be not in a hurry ; let 
us go on correctly, and your name shall be immortal. 

I am preparing a flaming preface for your third volume. I see 
every day new musical publications advertised ; but what are 
they ? Gaudy, painted butterflies of a day, and then vanish for 
ever : but your work will outlive the momentary neglects of idle 
fashion, and defy the teeth of time. 

Have you never a fair goddess that leads you a wild-goose 
chase of amorous devotion ? Let me know a few of her qualities, 
such as whether she be rather black or fair, plump or thin, shori 
or tall, &c: ; and choose your air, and I shall task my Muse to 
celebrate her. R. B. 



CLXIX. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 11th December 1788. 
My dear honoured Friend, — Yours, dated Edinburgh, 
which I have just read, makes me very unhappy. " Almost blind 
and wholly deaf," are melancholy news of human nature ; but 
when told of a much-loved and honoured friend, they carry misery 
in the sound. Goodness on your part, and gratitude on mine, 
began a tie which has gradually entwisted itself among the dear- 
est chords of my bosom, and I tremble at the omens of your late 
and present ailing habit and shattered health. You miscalculate 
matters widely when you forbid my waiting on you, lest it should 



BURNS' letters. 



hurt my worldly concerns. My small scale of farming is exceed- 
ingly more simple and easy than what you have lately seen at 
Moreham Mains. But, be that as it may, the heart of the 
man and the fancy of the poet are the two grand considerations 
for which I live. If miry ridges and dirty dunghills are to engross 
the best part of the functions of my soul immortal, I had better 
been a rook or a magpie at once, and then I should not have 
been plagued with any ideas superior to breaking of clods and 
picking up grubs ; not to mention barn-door cocks or mallards — 
creatures with which I could almost exchange lives at any time, 
If you continue so deaf, I am afraid a visit will be no great plea- 
sure to either of us ; but if I hear you are got so well again as to 
be able to relish conversation, look you to it, madam, for I will 
make my threatening good. I am to be at the New-Year-Day fair 
of Ayr ; and, by all that is sacred in the world, friend, I will come 
and see you. 

Your meeting, which you so well describe, with your old school- 
fellow and friend, was truly interesting. Out upon the ways of 
the world I They spoil these "social offsprings of the heart." 
Two veterans of the " men of the world" would have met with 
little more heart-workings than two old hacks worn out on the 
road. Apropos, Is not the Scotch phrase, " auld lang syne," ex- 
ceedingly expressive ? There is an old song and tune which has 
often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast in 
old Scotch songs. I shall give you the verses on the other sheet, 
(Auld Lang Syne, p. 234), as I suppose Mr Ker will save you the 
postage. 

Light be the turf on the breast of the Heaven-inspired poet who 
composed this glorious fragment.* There is more of the fire of 
native genius in it than in half-a-dozen of modern English Bac- 
chanalians ! Now I am on my hobby-horse, I cannot help in- 
serting two other old stanzas, which please me mightily (My 
Bonnie Ma^j, p. 235). R. B. 



CLXX. 



TO MR JOHN TENNANT. 

December 22, 178S. 
I yesterday tried my cask of whisky for the first time, and I 
assure you it does you great credit. It will bear five waters, strong, 
or six, ordinary toddy. The whisky of this country is a most 
rascally liquor; and, by consequence, only drunk by the most 
rascally part of the inhabitants. I am persuaded, if you once gel 
ft footing here, you might do a great deal of business in the way 

* Th's is a mere attempt at mystification, Eiirns himself being the author 



476 BURNS LETTERS. 



of consumpt ; and should you commence distiller again ,thia is 
the native barley country. I am ignorant if, in your present way 
of dealing, you would think it worth your while to extend your 
business so far as this country side. I write you this on the ac- 
count of an accident, which I must take the merit of having partly 
designed to. A neighbour of mine, a John Currie, miller in Carse- 
mill — a man who is, in a word, a "very" good man, even for a 
L.500 bargain — he and his wife were in my house the time 1 
broke open the cask. They keep a country public-house, and sell 
a great deal of foreign spirits, but all along thought that whisky 
would have degraded their house. They were perfectly astonish- 
ed at my whisky, both for its taste and strength ; and by their 
desire, I write you to know if you could supply them with liquor 
of an equal quality, and what price. Please write me by first 
post, and direct to me at Ellisland, near Dumfries. If you could 
take a jaunt this way yourself, I have a spare spoon, knife and 
fork, very much at your service. My compliments to Mrs Ten 
nant and all the geod folks in Glenconner and Barquharry. 

R. B 



CLXXI. 
TO MR WILLA1M CRUIKSHANK. 

Ellisland, [December] 1788. 

T have not room, my dear friend, to answer all the particulars 
of your last kind letter. I shall be in Edinburgh on some business 
very soon ; and as I shall be two days, or perhaps three, in town, 
we shall discuss matters vivd voce. My knee, I believe, will never 
be entirely well ; and an unlucky fall this winter has made it still 
worse. I well remember the circumstance you allude to respect- 
ing Creech's opinion of Mr Nicol ; but as the first gentleman 
owes me still about fifty pounds, I dare not meddle in the affair. 

It gave me a very heavy heart to read such accounts of the con- 
sequence of your quarrel with that puritanic, rotten-hearted, 

scoundrel, A . If, notwithstanding your unprecedented 

industry in public, and your irreproachable conduct in private 
life, he still has you so much in his power, what ruin may he not 
bring on some others I could name ? 

Many and happy returns of seasons to you, with your dearest 
and worthiest friend, and the lovely little pledge of your happy 
union. May the great Author of life, and of every enjoyment 
that can render life delightful, make her that comfortable blessing 
to you both which you so ardently wish for, and which, allow me 
to say, you so well deserve ! Glance over the foregoing verses, 
ftr\d let me have your blots. Adieu I R. B„ 



BURNS LETTERS. H* 



CLXXII. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellipland, New-Fear-Day Morning, 1789. 

This, dear madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to God 
that I came under the apostle James's description I— the prayer 
of a righteous man availeth much. In that case, madam, you 
should welcome in a year full of blessings : everything that ob- 
structs or disturbs tranquillity and self- enjoyment should be re- 
moved, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste should 
be yours. I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that I approve 
set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion, for 
breaking in on that habituated routine of life and thought which 
is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even some- 
times, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere 
machinery. 

This day — the first Sunday of May — a breezy, blue-skied noon 
some time about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm 
sunny day about the end of autumn — these, time out of mind, 
have been with me a kind of holiday. 

I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the " Spectator," The 
Vision of Mirza — a piece that struck my young fancy before I wa£ 
capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables : " On the 
5th day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my for 
fathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself and offered 
up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdad, in 
order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer." 

We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or struc- 
ture of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in 
them that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or 
struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no 
extraordinary impression. I have some favourite flowers in spring, 
among which are the mountain-daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, 
the wild-brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, 
that I view and hang over with particular delight. I never hear 
the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the 
wild, mixing cadence of a troop of gray plovers in an autumnal 
morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm 
of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this 
be owing ? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the ^Eolian 
harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident ? Or 
do these workings argue something within us above the trodden 
elod ? I own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and 
important realities — a God that made all things — man's imma- 
terial and immortal nature — and a world of weal or wo beyond 
death and the grave ! R. B. 



*7* BURNS' LETTERS. 



CLXXIII. 

TO DR MOORE. 

Ellisland, 4th Jan. 1789. 

Sir, — As often as I think of writing to you, which has been 
three or four times every week these six months, it gives me 
something so like the idea of an ordinary-sized statue offering at 
a conversation with the Rhodian colossus, that my mind misgives 
me, and the affair always miscarries somewhere between purpose 
and resolve. I have at last got some business with you, and 
business letters are written by the style-book. I say my business 
is with you, sir ; for you never had any with me, except the 
business that benevolence has in the mansion of poverty. 

The character and employment of a poet were formerly my 
pleasure, but are now my pride. I know that a very great deal 
of my late iclat was owing to the singularity of my situation, and 
the honest prejudice of Scotsmen ; but still, as I said in the pre- 
face to my first edition, I do look upon myself as having some 
pretensions from nature to the poetic character. I have not a 
doubt but the knack, the aptitude to learn the Muses' trade, is a 
gift bestowed by Him " who forms the secret bias of the soul ;" 
but I as firmly believe that excellence in the profession is the fruit 
of industry, labour, attention, and pains-^at least I am resolved 
to try my doctrine by the test of experience. Another appearance 
from the press I put off to a very distant day — a day that may 
never arrive ; but poesy I am determined to prosecute with all 
my vigour. Nature has given very few, if any, of the profession 
the talents of shining in every species of composition. I shall try 
(for until trial it is impossible to know) whether she has qualified 
me to shine in any one. The worst of it is, by the time one has 
finished a piece, it has been so often viewed and reviewed before 
the mental eye, that one loses in a good measure the powers of 
critical discrimination. Here the best criterion I know is a friend, 
not only of abilities to judge, but with good-nature enough, like a 
prudent teacher with a young learner, to praise perhaps a little 
more than is exactly just, lest the thin-skinned animal fall into 
that most deplorable of all poetic diseases— heart-breaking despon- 
dency of himself. Dare I, sir, already immensely indebted to your 
goodness, ask the additional obligation of your being that friend 
to me ? I enclose you an essay of mine, in a walk of poesy to me 
entirely new ; I mean the Epistle addressed to R. G., Esquire, or 
Robert Graham of Fintry, Esq., a gentleman of uncommon worth, 
to whom I lie under very great obligations. The story of the poem, 
like most of my poems, is connected with my own story ; and to 
give you the one I must give you something of the other. I can- 
not boast of Mr Creech's ingenuous' fair-dealing to me. He kept 



BURNS' LETTERS. 479 



me hanging about Edinburgh from the 7th August 1787 until the 
13th April 1788, before he would condescend to give me a state- 
ment of affairs ; nor had I got it even then, but for an angry 
letter I -wrote him, which irritated his pride, " I could" not " a 
tale," but a detail " unfold ;" but what am I that should speak 
against the Lord's anointed Bailie of Edinburgh ? 

I believe I shall in whole (£100 copyright included) clear about 
£400 some little odds ; and even part of this depends upon what 
the gentleman has yet to settle with me. I give you this infor- 
mation, because you did me the honour to interest yourself much 
in my welfare. I give you this information, but I give it to your- 
self only ; for I am still much in the gentleman's mercy. Perhaps 
I injure the man in the idea I am sometimes tempted to have of 
him : God forbid I should I A little time will try, for in a month 
I shall go to town to wind up the business, if possible. 

To give the rest of my story in brief: I have married "my 
Jean," and taken a farm. With the first step, I have every day 
more and more reason to be satisfied ; with the last, it is rather 
the reverse. I have a younger brother, who supports my aged 
mother ; another still younger brother, and three sisters in a farm. 
On my last return from Edinburgh, it cost me about £180 to save 
them from ruin. Not that I have lost so much : I only interposed 
between my brother and his impending fate by the loan of so 
much. I give myself no airs on this, for it was mere selfishness 
on my part. I was conscious that the wrong scale of the balance 
was pretty heavily charged, and I thought that throwing a little 
filial piety and fraternal affection into the scale in my favour, 
might help to smooth matters at the grand reckoning. There is 
still one thing would make my circumstances quite easy ; I have 
an Excise-officer's commission, and I live in the midst of a country 
division. My request to Mr Graham, who is one of the commis- 
sioners t of Excise, was, if in his power, to procure me that division. 
If I were very sanguine, I might hope that some of my great 
patrons might procure me a treasury-warrant for supervisor, sur- 
veyor-general, &c. 

Thus, secure of a livelihood, " to thee, sweet Poetry, delightful 
maid," I would consecrate my future days. R. B. 



CLXXIV. 
TO MR ROBERT ALNSLIE. 

Ellislaxd, January 6, 1789. 
Many happy returns of the season to you, my dear sir. May 
you be comparatively happy, up to your comparative worth, 
among the sons of men ; which wish would, I am sure, make you 
one of the most blest of the human race. 



*80 BURNS' LETTERS. 

I do not know if passing a " writer to the signet" be a trial of 
scientific merit, or a mere business of friends and interest. How- 
ever it be, let me quote you my two favourite passages, which, 
though I have repeated them ten thousand times, still they rouse 
my manhood, and steel my resolution like inspiration : — 

11 On Reason build resolve, 
That column of true majesty in man." — Young. 
" Hear, Alfred, hero of the state, 
Thy genius heaven's high will declare; 
The triumph of the truly great, 
Is never, never to despair ! 
Is never to despair." — Masque of Alfred, 

I grant you enter the lists of life to struggle for bread, business, 
notice, and distinction, in common with hundreds. But who are 
they ? Men like yourself, and of that aggregate body your com- 
peers, seven-tenths of them come short of your advantages, natural 
and accidental ; while two of those that remain either neglect 
their parts, as flowers blooming in a desert, or misspend their 
strength like a bull goring a bramble bush. 

But to change the theme : I am still catering for Johnson's 
publication ; and among others, I have brushed up the following 
old favourite song a little, with a view to your worship. I have 
only altered a word here and there ; but if you like the humour of 
it, we shall think of a stanza or two to add to it. R. B. 



CLXXV. 

TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ. 

Ellisland, 9th Jan. 1789. 

Sir, — A poet and a beggar are in so many points of view alike, 
that ono might take them for the same individual character under 
different designations ; were it not, that though, with a trifling 
poetic license, poets may be styled beggars, yet the converse of the 
proposition does not hold, that every beggar is a poet. In one parti- 
cular, however, they remarkably agree ; if you help either the one 
or the other to a mug of ale or the picking of a bone, they will 
very willingly repay you with a song. This occurs to me at pre- 
sent (as I have just despatched a well-lined rib of J. Kilpatrick's 
Highlander ; a bargain for which I am indebted to you), in the 
style of our ballad-printers, " Five Excellent New Songs." The 
enclosed is nearly my newest song, and one that has cost me some 
pains, though that is but an equivocal mark of its excellence. 
Two or three others which I have by me shall do themselves the 
honour to wait on your after-leisure : petitioners for admit- 
tance into favour must not harass the condescension of their 
benefactor. 

You see, sir, what it is to patronise a poet. 'Tis like being a 



burns' letters. 



magistrate in Pettyborough ; you do them the favour to preside in 
their council for one year, and your name bears the prefatory 
stigma of bailie for life. 

With not the compliments, but the best wishes, the sincerest 
prayers of the season for you, that you may see many happy years 
with Mrs M'Murdo and your family— two blessings, by-the-bye, 
to which your rank does not entitle you — a loving wife and fine 
family being almost the only good thing3 of this life to which the 
farm-house and cottage have an exclusive right — I have the 
honour to be, sir, your much indebted and very humble servant, 

R. Burns, 



CLXXYI. 
TO PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART. 

Ellisland, 20th Jan. 1789. 

S 1R) — The enclosed sealed packet I sent to Edinburgh a few 
lays after I had the happiness of meeting you in Ayrshire, bu'c 
r ou were gone for the Continent. I have now added a few more of 
ly productions, those for which I am indebted to the Xithsdale 
•.luses. The piece inscribed to R. G., Esq., is a copy of verses 1 
ent to Mr Graham of Fintry, accompanying a request for his 
issistance in a matter to me of very great moment. To that 
.entleman I am already doubly indebted for deeds of kindness of 
erious import to my dearest interests, done in a manner grateful 
> the delicate feelings of sensibility. This poem is a species of 
2omposition new to me ; but I do not intend it shall *be my last 
b.say of the kind, as you will see by the Poet's Progress. These 
fragments, if my design succeed, are but a small part of the 
intended whole. I propose it shall be the work of my utmost 
exertions, ripened by years : of course I do not wish it much known. 
The fragment beginning "A little, upright, pert, tart/' &c, I have 
not shewn to man living, till I now send it you. It forms the 
postulata, the axioms, the definition of a character, which, if it 
appear at all, shall be placed in a variety of lights. This parti- 
cular part I send you merely as a sample of my hand at portrait- 
sketching ; but, lest idle conjecture should pretend to point out 
the original, please to let it be for your single, sole inspection. 

Need ] make any apology for thi3 trouble to a gentleman who 
has treated me with such marked benevolence and peculiar kind- 
ness ; who has entered into my interests with so much zeal, and 
on whose critical decisions I can so fully depend ? A poet as I 
am by trade, these decisions are to me of the last consequence. 
My late transient acquaintance among some of the mere rank 
*.nd file of greatness, I resign with ease ; but to the distinguished 



*82 BURNS' LETTERS. 



champions of genius and learning, I shall be ever ambitious of 
being known. The native genius and accurate discernment in 
Mr Stewart's critical strictures ; the justice (iron justice, for he 
has no bowels of compassion for a poor poetic sinner) of Dr Gre- 
gory's remarks, and the delicacy of Professor DalzelFs taste, I 
shall ever revere. 

I shall be in Edinburgh some time next month. I have th« 
honour to be, sir, your highly obliged and very humble servant, 

R.B. 



CLXXVII. 

TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL. 

Ellislakd, 1789. 

Sir, — I wish from my inmost soul it were in my power to give 
you a more substantial gratification and return for all the good- 
ness to the poet, than transcribing a few of his idle rhymes. How- 
ever, u an old song," though to a proverb an instance of insignia 
ficance, is generally the only coin a poet has to pay with. 

If my poems which I have transcribed, and mean still to trans- 
scribe, into your book, were equal to the grateful respect and high 
esteem I bear for the gentleman to whom I present them, they 
would be the finest poems in the language. As they are, they 
will at least be a testimony with what sincerity I have the honour 
to be, sir, your devoted humble servant, R. B. 



CLXXVIIL 
TO BISHOP GEDDES. 

Ellislakd, Bd Feb. 1789. 
venerable Father, — As I am conscious that, wherever I am, 
you do me the honour to interest yourself in my welfare, it gives 
me pleasure to inform you that I am here at last, stationary in 
the serious business of life, and have now not only the retired 
leisure, but the hearty inclination, to attend to those great and 
important questions — what I am, where I am, and for what I am 
des iined. 

that first concern — the conduct of the man — there was ever 
but one side on which I was habitually blameable, and there I 
Lave secured myself in the way pointed out by nature and nature's 
God. I was sensible that, to so helpless a creature as a poor poet, 
a wife .and family were encumbrances, which a species of prudence 
vould bid him shun ; but wh©a the alternative was, being at ete 1 ^ 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



nal warfare with myself, on account of habitual follies, to give 
them no worse name, which no general example, no licentious wit, 
no sophistical infidelity, would to me ever justify, I must have 
been a fool to have hesitated, and a madman to have made another 
choice. Besides, I had in " my Jean " a long and much-loved 
fellow-creature's happiness or misery among my hands ; and who 
could trifle with such a deposit ? 

In the affair of a livelihood, I think myself tolerably secure. I 
have good hopes of my farm ; but should they fail, I have an 
Excise-commission, which, on my simple petition, will at any time 
procure me bread. There is a certain stigma affixed to the cha- 
racter of an Excise-officer, but I do not pretend to borrow honour 
from my profession ; and though the salary be comparatively 
email, it is luxury to anything that the first twenty-five years of 
my life taught me to expect. 

Thus, with a rational aim and method in life, you may easily 
guess, my reverend and much-honoured friend, that my character- 
istical trade is not forgotten. I am, if possible, more than eve? 
an enthusiast to the Muses. I am determined to study man and 
nature, and in that view incessantly ; and to try if the ripening 
and corrections of years can enable me to. produce something 
worth preserving. 

You will see in your book — which I beg your pardon for detain- 
ing so long — that I have been tuning my lyre on the banks of 
Nith. Some large poetic plans that are floating in my imagina- 
tion, or partly put in execution, I shall impart to you when I have 
the pleasure of meeting with you, which, if you are then in Edin- 
burgh, I shall have about the beginning of March. 

That acquaintance, worthy sir, with which you were pleased to 
honour me, you must still allow me to challenge ; for with what- 
ever unconcern I give up my transient connection with the merely 
great, I cannot lose the patronizing notice of the learned and good 
without the bitterest regret. R. B. 



CLXXIX, 
TO MR JAMES BURNES. 

Ellislato, 9th Feb. 1789. 
My dear Sir, — Why I did not write to you long ago, is what 
— even on the rack — I could not answer. If you can in your mind 
form an idea of indolence, dissipation, hurry, cares, change of 
country, entering on untried scenes of life, all combined, you will 
save me the trouble of a blushing apology. It could not be want 
of regard for a man for whom I had a high esteem before I knew 
him — an esteem which has much increased since I did know him , 



2h 



484 BURNS' LETTERS. 

and, this caveat entered, I shall plead guilty to any other indict* 
ment with which you shall please to charge me. 

After I parted from you, for many months my life was one con- 
tinued scene of dissipation. Here at last I am become stationary, 
and have taken a farm and— a wife. 

The farm is beautifully situated on the Nith, a large river that 
runs by Dumfries, and falls into the Solway Frith. I have gotten 
a lease of my farm as long as I pleased ; but how it may turn out 
is just a guess, and it is yet to improve and enclose, &c. ; however, 
I have good hopes of my bargain on the whole. 

My wife is "my Jean," with whose story you are partly acquaint- 
ed. I found I had a much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or 
misery among my hands, and I durst not trifle with so sacred a 
deposit. Indeed, I have not any reason to repent the step I have 
taken, as I have attached myself to a very good wife, and have 
shaken myself loose of a very bad failing. 

I have found my book a very profitable business ; and with the 
profits of it I have begun life pretty decently. Should fortune not 
favour me in farming, as I have no great faith in her fickle lady- 
ship, I have provided myself in another resource, which, however 
some folks may affect to despise it, is still a comfortable shift in 
the day of misfortune. In the heyday of my fame, a gentleman, 
whose name at least I daresay you know, as his estate lies some- 
where near Dundee, — Mr Graham of Fintry, one of the commis- 
sioners of Excise,— offered me the commission of an Excise-officer. 
I thought it prudent to accept the offer ; and accordingly I took 
my instructions, and have my commission by me. "Whether I 
may ever do duty, or be a penny the better for it, is what I do 
not know; but I have the comfortable assurance that, come 
whatever ill-fate will, I can, on my simple petition to the Excise- 
board, get into employ. 

We have lost poor uncle Robert this winter. He has long been 
very weak, and with very little alteration on him : he expired 3d 
January. 

His son William has been with me this winter, and goes in May 
to be an apprentice to a mason. His other son, the eldest, John, 
comes to me, I expect, in summer. They are both remarkably 
stout young fellows, and promise to do well. His only daughter, 
Fanny, has been with me ever since her father's death, and I 
purpose keeping her in my family till she be quite woman-grown, 
and fit for better service. She is one of the cleverest girls, and 
has one of the most amiable dispositions, I have ever seen. 

All friends in this county and Ayrshire are well. Remember 
me to all friends in the north. My wife joins me in complimenta 
to Mrs B. and family. I am ever, my dear cousin, yours sincerely 

R.B. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 483 



CLXXX. 

Isle, 2d March 1789. 
My DEAR WnJLIAM, — I arrived from Edinburgh only the night 
before last, so could not answer your epistle sooner. I congratu- 
late you on the prospect of employ ; and I am indebted to you for 
one of the best letters that has been written by any mechanic-lad 
in Nithsdale, or Annandale, or any dale on either side of the 
border, this twelvemonth. Not that I would have you always 
affect the stately stilts of studied composition, but surely writing 
a handsome letter is an accomplishment worth courting ; and, 
with attention and practice, I can promise you that it will soon 
be an accomplishment of yours. If my advice can serve you — 
that is to say, if you can resolve to accustom yourself not only in 
reviewing your own deportment, manners, &c, but also in carrying 
your consequent resolutions of amending the faulty parts into 
practice — my small knowledge and experience of the world is 
heartily at your service. I intended to have given you a sheetful 
of counsels, but some business has prevented me. In a word, 
learn taciturnity ; let that be your motto. Though you had the 
wisdom of Newton, or the wit of Swift, garrulousness would lower 
vou in the eyes of your fellow-creatures. I'll probably write you 
next week. I am your brother, Robert Burks. 



CLXXXI. 

TO CLARLNDA. 

9th March 1789. 

Madam, — The letter you wrote me to Heron's carried its own 
answer in its bosom ; you forbade me to write you, unless I was 
willing to plead guilty to a certain indictment that you were 
pleased to bring against me. As I am convinced of my own inno- 
cence, and, though conscious of high imprudence and egregious 
folly, can lay my hand on my breast and attest the rectitude of 
my heart, you will pardon me, madam, if I do not carry my com- 
plaisance so far as humbly to acquiesce in the name of Villain, 
merely out of compliment to your opinion, much as I esteem your 
judgment, and warmly as I regard your worth, 

I have already told you, and I again aver it, that at the period 
of time alluded to, I was not under the smallest moral tie to Mr3 
Burns ; nor did I, nor could I then know, all the powerful circum- 
stances that omnipotent necessity was busy laying wait for me. 
When you call over the scenes that have passed between us, you 
will survey the conduct of an honest man, struggling successfully 
with temptations, the most powerful that ever beset humanity 



*86 BURNS' LETTERS. 



md preserving untainted honour, in situations where the austerest 
virtue would have forgiven a fall — situations that, I will dare to 
ay, not a single individual of all his kind, even with half his sen- 
sibility and passion, could have encountered without ruin ; and 
I leave you to guess, madam, how such a man is likely to digest 
an accusation of perfidious treachery. 

Was I to blame, madam, in being the distracted victim of charms 
which, I affirm it, no man ever approached with impunity ? Had 
I seen the least glimmering of hope that these charms could ever 

have been mine ; or even had not iron necessity But these 

are unavailing words. 

I would have called on you when I was in town ; indeed I 
could not have resisted it, but that Mr Ainslie told me that you 
were determined to avoid your windows while I was in town, lest 
even a glance of me should occur in the street. 

When I shall have regained your good opinion, perhaps I may 
venture to solicit your friendship ; but, be that as it may, the first 
of her sex I ever knew shall always be the object of my warmest 
good wishes. Sylvander. 



CLXXXII. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 4th March 1789. 
Here am I, my honoured friend, returned safe from the capital. 
To a man who has a home, however humble or remote, — if that 
home is like mine, the scene of domestic comfort, — the bustle 0/ 
Edinburgh will soon be a business of sickening disgust. 

*' Vain pomp and glory of this world I hate you," 

When I must sculk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage o\ 
some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am 
tempted to exclaim, u What merits has he had, orwhat demerit 
have I had, in some state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into 
this state of being with the sceptre of rule and the key of riches 
in his puny fist, and I am kicked into the world, the sport of folly, 
or the victim of pride ?" I have read somewhere of a monarch 
(in Spain I think it was), who was so out of humour with the 
Ptolemaean system of astronomy, that he said, had he been of the 
Creator's council, he could have saved him a great deal of labour 
and absurdity. I will not defend this blasphemous speech; but 
often, as I have glided with humble stealth through the pomp of 
Princes Street, it has suggested itself to me, as an improvement 
on the present human figure, that a man, in proportion to his 
own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have pushed 
cut the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his 
horns, or as we draw out a prospect-glass. This trifling altera 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



tion, not to mention the prodigious saving it would be in the tear 
and wear of the neck and limb sinews of many of His Majesty's 
liege-subjects, in the way of tossing the head and tiptoe strutting, 
would evidently turn out a vast advantage, in enabling us at once 
to adjust the ceremonials in making a bow, or making way to a 
great man, and that, too, within a second of the precise spherical 
angle of reverence, or an inch of the particular point of respectful 
distance, which the important creature itself requires ; as a 
measuring glance at its towering altitude would determine the 
affair like instinct. 

You are right, madam, in your idea of poor Mylne's poem, 
which he has addressed to me. The piece has a good deal of merit, 
but it has one great fault — it is by far too long. Besides, my success 
has encouraged such a shoal of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into 
public notice, under the title of Scottish poets, that the very terra 
Scottish poetry borders on the burlesque. When I write to Mr Car- 
frae, 1 shall advise him rather to try one of his deceased friend's 
English pieces. I am prodigiously hurried with my own matters, 
else I would have requested a perusal of all Mylne's poetic perfor- 
mances, and would have offered his friends my assistance in 
cither selecting or correcting what would be proper for the press. 
What it is that occupies me so much, and perhaps a little 
oppresses my present spirits, shall fill up a paragraph in some 
future letter. In the meantime, allow me to close this epistle 
with a few lines done by a friend of mine. ... I give you 
them, that, as you have seen the original, you may guess whether 
one or two alterations I have ventured to make in them be any 
real improvement : — 

" Like the fair plant that from our touch withdraws, 
Shrink, mildly fearful, even from applause, 
Be all a mother's fondest hope can dream, 
And all you are, my charming * * * *, seem. 
Straight as the foxglove* ere her bells disclose, 
Mild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn blows, 
Fair as the fairest of each lovely kind, 
Your form shall be the image of your mind; 
Your manners shall so true your soul express, 
That all shall long to know the worth they guess; 
Congenial hearts shall greet with kindred love. 
And even sick'ning envy must approve."* 

R. B. 



CLXXXIII. 

TO THE REV. P. CARFRAE. 

[Ellislaxd, March 1789 fj 

Rev. Sir, — I do not recollect that I have ever felt a severer 

pang of shame, than on looking at the date of your obliging letter 

which accompanied Mr Mylne's poem, 

* These beautiful lines, we have reason to believe tire the production of ibd 
lady to whom this letter is addressed.— Ct/rrie. 



488 BURNS' LETTERS. 



I am much to blame : the honour Mr Mylne has done me, 
greatly enhanced in its yalue by the endearing, though melan- 
choly circumstance of its being the last production of his Muse, 
deserved a better return. 

I have, as you hint, thought of sending a copy of the poem to 
some periodical publication ; but, on second thoughts, I am afraid 
that, in the present case, it would be an improper step. My suc- 
cess — perhaps as much accidental as merited — has brought an in- 
undation of nonsense under the name of Scottish poetry. Sub- 
scription-bills for Scottish poems have so dunned, and daily do 
dun, the public, that the very name is in danger of contempt. 
For these reasons, if publishing any of Mr Mylne's poems in a 
magazine, &c, be at all prudent, in my opinion it certainly should 
not be a Scottish poem. The profits of the labours of a man of 
genius are, I hope, as honourable as any profits whatever ; and 
Mr Mylne's relations are most justly entitled to that honest har- 
vest which fate has denied himself to reap. But let the friends of 
Mr Mylne's fame (among whom I crave the honour of ranking 
myself) always keep in eye his respectability as a man and as a 
poet, and take no measure that, before the world knows anything 
about him, would risk his name and character being classed with 
the fools of the times. 

I have, sir, some experience of publishing ; and the way in 
which I would proceed with Mr Mylne's poems is this : — I will 
publish, in two or three English and Scottish public papers any 
one of his English poems which should, by private judges, be 
thought the most excellent, and mention it at the same time as 
one of the productions of a Lothian farmer of respectable charac- 
ter, lately deceased ; whose poems his friends had it in idea to pub- 
lish soon by subscription, for the sake of his numerous family — 
not in pity to that family, but in justice to what his friends think 
the poetic merits of the deceased ; and to secure, in the most 
effectual manner, to those tender connections, whose right it is, 
the pecuniary reward of those merits. R. B. 



CLXXXIV. 
TO MR PETER HILL, BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH. 

[Ellisland, March 1789 ?] 
My dear Hill, — I shall say nothing to your mad present — 
you have so long and often been of important service to me, and 
I suppose you mean to go on conferring obligations until I shall 
not be able to lift up my face before you. In the meantime, as 
Sir Roger de Coverley, because it happened to be a cold day in 
ttlrich he made his will, ordered his servants greatcoats for 



BURNS LETTERS, 



489 



mourning ; so because I have been this week plagued with an in 
digestion, I have sent you by tho carrier a fine old ewe-milk 
cheese. 

Indigestion is the devil — nay, 'tis the devil and all. It besets a 
.man in every one of his senses. I loose my appetite at the sight 
of successful knavery, and sicken to loathing at the noise and non- 
sense of self-important folly. When the hollow-hearted wretch 
takes me by the hand, the feeling spoils my dinner ; the proud 
man's wine so offends my palate, that it chokes me in the gullet ; 
and the imlvilised, feathered, pert coxcomb is so disgustful in my 
nostril, that my stomach turns. 

If ever you have any of these disagreeable sensations, let me 
prescribe for you patience and a bit of my cheese. I know that 
you are no niggard of your good things among your friends, and 
some of them are in much need of a slice. There, in my eye, is 
our friend Smellie — a man positively of the first abilities and 
greatest strength of mind, as well as one of the best hearts and 
keenest wits that I ever met with ; when you see him — as alas ! 
he too is smarting at the pinch of distressful circumstances, aggra- 
vated by the sneer of contumelious greatness — a bit of my cheese 
alone will not cure him ; but if you add a tankard of brown stout, 
and superadd a magnum of right Oporto, you will see his sorrows 
vanish like the morning mist before the summer sun. 

Candlish, the earliest friend, except my only brother, that I 
have on earth, and one of the worthiest fellows that ever any man 
called by the name of friend, if a luncheon of my best cheese 
would help to rid him of some of his superabundant modesty, you 
would do well to give it him. 

David, with his Courant, comes, too, across my recollection, and 
I beg you will help him largely from the said ewe-milk cheese, to 
enable him to digest those bedaubing paragraphs with which 
he is eternally larding the lean characters of certain great men 
in a certain great town. I grant you the periods are very 
well turned ; so, a fresh egg is a very good thing ; but when 
thrown at a man in a pillory, it does not at all improve his figure, 
not to mention the irreparable loss of the egg. 

My facetious friend Dunbar I would wish also to be a partaker ; 
not to digest his spleen, for that he laughs off, but to digest his 
last night's wine at the last field-day of the Crochallan corps. 

Among our common friends I must not forget one of the dearest 
of them — Cunningham. The brutality, insolence, and selfishness 
of a world unworthy of having such a fellow as he is in it, I know 
sticks in his stomach, and if you can help him to anything that 
will make him a little easier on that score, it will be very obliging. 

As to honest John Somerville, he is such a contented, happy 
man, that I know not what can annoy him, except, perhaps, he 
may not have got the better of a parcel of modest anecdotes whicb 



190 BURNS' LETTERS. 

a certain poet gave him one night at supper the last time the 
said poet was in town. 

Though I have mentioned so many men of law, I shall have 
nothing to do with them professionally : the faculty are beyond 
my prescription. As to their clients, that is another thing — they 
have much to digest 1 

The clergy I pass by : their profundity of erudition and their 
liberality of sentiment, their total want of pride and their detesta- 
tion of hypocrisy, are so proverbially notorious, as to place them 
far, far above either my praise or censure. 

I was going to mention a man of worth, whom I have the honour 
to call friend — the Laird of Craigdarroch, — but I have spoken to 
the landlord of the King's- Arms Inn here to have at the next 
county meeting a large ewe-milk cheese on the table, for the bene- 
fit of the Dumfriesshire Whigs, to enable them to digest the Duke 
of Queensberry's late political conduct. 

I have just this moment an opportunity of a private hand to 
Edinburgh, as perhaps you would not digest double postage. So 
God bless you. R. B. 



CLXXXV. 

TO DR MOORE. 

Ellisland, 23c? March 1789. 

Sir, — The gentleman who will deliver this is a Mr Nielson, a 
worthy clergyman in my neighbourhood, and a very particular 
acquaintance of mine. As I have troubled him with this packet, 
I must turn him over to your goodness, to recompense him for it 
in a way in which he much needs your assistance, and where you 
can effectually serve him. Mr Nielson is on his way for France, 
to wait on his Grace of Queensberry, on some little business of a 
good deal of importance to him ; and he wishes for your instruc- 
tions respecting the most eligible mode of travelling, &c, for him 
when he has crossed the Channel. I should not have dared to 
take this liberty with you, but that I am told, by those who have 
the honour of your personal acquaintance, that to be a poor honest 
Scotchman is a letter of recommendation to you, and that to have 
it in your power to serve such a character gives you much pleasure. 

The enclosed Ode is a compliment to the memory of the late 
Mrs Oswald of Auchencruive. You probably knew her personally, 
an honour of which I cannot boast ; but I spent my early years in 
her neighbourhood, and among her servants and tenants. I know 
that she was detested with the most heartfelt cordiality. However, 
in the particular part of her conduct which roused my poetic wrath 
she was much less blameable. In January last, on myroad to Ayr- 
shire, I had put up at Bailie Whighain's, in Sanquhar, the only 



burns' letters. mi 



tolerable inn in the place. The frost was keen, and the grim 
evening and howling wind were ushering in a night of snow and 
drift. My horse and I were both much fatigued with the labours 
of the day; and just as my friend the bailie and I were bidding 
defiance to the storm, over a smoking bowl, in wheels the funeral 
pageantry of the late great Mrs Oswald, and poor I am forced to 
brave all the horrors of the tempestuous night, and jade my horse 
— my young favourite horse, whom I had just christened Pegasus 
— twelve miles farther on, through the wildest moors and hills of 
Ayrshire, to New Cumnock, the next inn. The powers of poesy 
and prose sink under me when I would describe what I felt. 
Suffice it to say, that when a good fire at New Cumnock had so 
far recovered my frozen sinews, I sat down and wrote the enclosed 
Ode (p. 139). 

I was at Edinburgh lately, and settled finally with Mr Creech ; 
and I must own that at last he has been amicable and fair with 
me. R. B. 



CLXXXVI. 

TO MR PETER HILL. 

Ellislaxd, 2d April 1789. 
I will make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus, that I have sat 
down to write you on this vile paper, stained with the sanguinary 
scores of " thae horse-leeches o' the Excise." 

* It is economy, sir — it is that cardinal virtue, prudence ; so I 
beg you will sit down, and either compose or borrow a panegyric. If 
you are going to borrow, apply to our friend Ramsay for the assist- 
ance of the author of the pretty little buttering paragraphs of 
eulogium on your thrice-honoured and never-enough-k>-be-praised 
Magistracy — how they hunt down a housebreaker with the 
sanguinary perseverance of a bloodhound — how they outdo a 
terrier in a badger-hole in unearthing a resetter of stolen goods- 
how they steal on a thoughtless troop of night-nymphs as a spaniel 
winds the unsuspecting covey — or how they riot over a ravaged 

* * as a cat does o'er a plundered mouse-nest — how they new 
vamp old churches, aiming at appearances of piety, plan squares 
and colleges, to pass for men of taste and learning, &c, &c, &c. ; 
while Old Edinburgh, like the doting mother of a parcel of wild 
prodigals, may sing Hooly and fairly, or cry TTWs me that e'er 1 
saw ye / but still must put her hand in her pocket, alid pay what- 
ever scores the young dogs think proper to contract. 

I was going to say — but this parenthesis has put me out of 
breath — that you should get that manufacturer of the tinselled 
crockery of magistratial reputations, who makes so distinguished 
and distinguishing a figure in the Evening Coumnt, to compose. 



492 burns' letters. 



or rather to compound, something very clever on my remarkablo 
frugality ; that I write to one of my most esteemed friends on this 
wretched paper, which was originally intended for the venal fist 
of some drunken exciseman, to take dirty notes in a miserable 
vault of an ale-cellar. 

Frugality ! thou mother of ten thousand blessings — thou cook 
of fat beef and dainty greens ! thou manufacturer of warm Shet- 
land hose and comfortable surtouts ! thou old housewife, darning 
thy decayed stockings with thy ancient spectacles on thy aged 
nose — lead me, hand me in thy clutching palsied fist, up those 
heights and through those thickets hitherto inaccessible and im- 
pervious to my anxious, weary feet— not those Parnassian crags, 
bleak and barren, where the hungry worshippers of fame are, 
breathless, clambering, hanging between heaven and hell, but 
those glittering cliffs of Potosi, where the all-sufficient, all-power- 
ful deity, "Wealth, holds his immediate court of joys and pleasures ; 
where the sunny exposure of plenty, and the hot walls of profu- 
sion, produce those blissful fruits of luxury, exotics in this world, 
and natives of paradise ! Thou withered sibyl, my sage conduct- 
ress, usher me into thy refulgent, adored presence ! The power, 
splendid and potent as he now is, was once the puling nursling 
of thy faithful care and tender arms ! Call me thy son, thy cousin, 
thy kinsman, or favourite, and adjure the god by the scenes of his 
infant years no longer to repulse me as a stranger or an alien, 
but to favour me with his peculiar countenance and protection ! 
He daily bestows his greatest kindness on the undeserving and 
the worthless — assure him that I bring ample documents of meri- 
torious demerits ! Pledge yourself for me, that, for the glorious 
cause of lucre, I will do anything, be anything, but the horse-leech 
of private oppression, or the vulture of public robbery ! 

But to descend from heroics — what have you done with my 
trunk ? Please let me have it by the first carrier. 

1 want a Shakspeare : let me know what plays your used copy 
of Bell's Shakspeare wants. I want likewise an English dictionary 
—Johnson's, I suppose, is best. In these, and all my prose com- 
missions the cheapest is always the best for me. There is a small 
debt of honour that I owe Mr Robert Cleghorn, in Saughton Mills, 
my worthy friend and your well-wisher. Please give him, and 
urge him to take it, the first time you see him, ten shillings worth 
of anything you have to sell, and place it to my account. 

The library scheme that I mentioned to you is already begun 
under the direction of Captain Riddel and me. There is another 
in emulation of it going on at Closeburn, under the auspices of 
Mr Monteath of Closeburn, which will be on a greater scale than 
ours. I have likewise secured it for you. Captain Riddel gave 
his infant society a great many of his old books, else I had written 
you on that subject ; but one of these days, I shall trouble you 



BURNS' letters. 



«» a 



with a commission for the Monkland Friendly Society. A copy 
of The Spectator, Mirror, and Lounger, Man of Feeling, Man of 
the World, Guthrie's Geographical Grammar, with some religious 
pieces, will likely be our first order. 

When I grow richer I will write to you on gilt-post, to make 
amends for this sheet. At present every guinea has.a five-guinea 
errand with, my dear sir, your faithful, poor, but honest friend, 

R. B. 



CLXXXVII. 

TO MRS M'MURDO, DRUMLANRIG. 

Ellisland, 2d May 1789. 
Madam, — I have finished the piece which had the happy fortune 
to be honoured with your approbation ; and never did little miss with 
more sparkling pleasure shew her applauded sampler to partial 
mamma, than I now send my poem to you and Mr M'Murdo, if 
he is returned to Drumlanrig. You cannot easily imagine what 
thin-skinned animals, what sensitive plants, poor poets are. How 
do we shrink into the imbittered corner of self-abasement when 
neglected or condemned by those to whom we look up ! — and how 
do we, in erect importance, add another cubit to our stature on 
being noticed and applauded by those whom we honour and re- 
spect ! My late visit to Drumlanrig has, I can tell you, madam, 
given me a balloon waft up Parnassus, where on my fancied eleva- 
tion I regard my poetic self with no small degree of complacency. 
Surely, with all their sins, the rhyming tribe are not ungrateful 
creatures. I recollect your goodness to your humble guest. I see 
Mr M'Murdo adding to the politeness of the gentleman the kind- 
ness of a friend, and my heart swells as it would burst with warm 
emotions and ardent wishes ! It may be it is not gratitude ; it 
may be a mixed sensation. That strange, shifting, doubling 
animal man is so generally, at best, but a negative, often a worth- 
less creature, that we cannot see real goodness and native worth 
without feeling the bosom glow with sympathetic approbation. 
With every sentiment of grateful respect, I have the honour to be, 
madam, your obliged and grateful, humble servant, R. B. 



CLXXXVIII. 

TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 

Ellisland, 4th May 1789 
My dear Sir, — Your duty-free favour of the 26th April I re- 
ceived two days ago : I will *iot say I perused it with pleasure- 
that is the cold compliment of ceremony — I perused it, sir, with 



494 BURNS' LETTERS. 



delicious satisfaction ; in short, it is such a letter, that not yon, 
nor your friend, but the legislature, by express proviso in their 
postage-laws, should frank. A letter informed with the soul of 
friendship is such an honour to human nature, that they should 
order it free ingress and egress to and from their bags and mails, 
as an encouragement and mark of distinction to supereminent 
virtue. 

I have just put the last hand to a little poem, which I think 
will be something to your taste. One morning lately, as I was 
out pretty early in the fields, sowing some grass seeds, I heard the 
burst of a shot from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a 
poor little wounded hare came crippling by me. You will guess 
my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at 
this season, when all of them have young ones. Indeed, there is 
something in that business of destroying for our sport individuals 
in the animal creation that do not injure us materially, which T 
could never reconcile to my ideas of virtue. 

Let me know how you like my poem (p. 141). I am doubt- 
ful whether it would not be an improvement to keep out the last 
stanza but one altogether. 

Cruikshank is a glorious production of the Author of man. You, 
he, and the noble Colonel of the Crochallan Fencibles are to me 

11 Dear as the ruddy drop3 which warm my heart." 

I have got a good mind to make verses on you all, to the tune of 
" Three guid fellows ayont the glen." R. B. 



CLXXXIX. 
TO MR RICHARD BROWN. 

Mauchline, 21st May 1789. 

My dear Friend, — I was in the country by accident, and 
hearing of your safe arrival, I could not resist the temptation of 
wishing you joy on your return — wishing you would write to me 
before you sail again — wishing you would always set me down as 
your bosom-friend — wishing you long life and prosperity, and that 
every good thing may attend you — wishing Mrs Brown and your 
little ones as free of the evils of this, world as is consistent with 
humanity — wishing I had longer time to write to you at present— 
and, finally, wishing that, if there is to be another state of exist- 
ence, Mr B., Mrs B., our little ones, and both families, and you and 
I, in some snug retreat, may make a jovial party to all eternity ! 

My direction is at Ellisland, near Dumfries. Yours, R. B. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 4S5 



cxc. 

TO MR JAMES HAMILTON. 

Ellisland, 26th May 1789. 

Dear Sir, — I would fain offer, my dear sir, a word of sympathy 
with your misfortunes ; but it is a tender string, and I know not 
how to touch it. It is easy to flourish a set of high-flown senti- 
ments on the subjects that would give great satisfaction to — a 
breast quite at ease ; but as one observes who was very seldom 
mistaken in the theory of life : " The heart knoweth its own 
sorrows, and a stranger intermeddleth not therewith." 

Among some distressful emergencies that I have experienced 
in life, I ever laid this down as my foundation of comfort: TJiat 
he luho has lived the life of an honest man has by no means lived in 
vain l 

"With every wish for your welfare and future success, I am, my 
dear sir, sincerely yours, R. B. 



CXCI. 
TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ. 

Ellislaxd, 20th May 1789. 

Sir, — I had intended to have troubled you with a long letter ; 
bat at present the delightful sensations of an omnipotent toothache 
bo engross all my inner man, as to put it out of my power even to 
write nonsense. However, as in duty bound, I approach my book- 
seller with an offering in my hand — a few poetic clinches and a 
song : — to expect any- other kind of offering from the rhyming 
tribe would be to know them much less than you do. I do not 
pretend that the,re is much merit in these morceaux, but I have 
two reasons for sending them — prima, they are mostly ill-natured, 
so are in unison with my present feelings, while fifty troops of 
infernal spirits are driving post from ear to ear along my jaw- 
bones ; and, secondly, they are so short that you cannot leave off 
in the middle, and so hurt my pride in the idea that you found 
any work of mine too heavy to get through. 

I have a request to beg of you, and I not only beg of you, but 
conjure you, by all your wishes and by all your hopes, that the 
Muse will spare the satiric wink in the moment of your foibles i 
that she will warble the song of rapture round your, hymeneal 
couch ; and that she will shed on your turf the honest tear of 
elegiac gratitude ! Grant my request as speedily as possible : send 
me by the very first fly or coach for this place three copies of the 
iast edition of my poems, which place to my account. 



496 BURNS' LETTERS. 



Now may the good things of prose, and the good things of verse, 
come among thy hands, until they be filled with the good thingt 
of this Ufe, prayeth R. B. 

CXCII. 

TO MR M'AULAY, OF DUMBARTON. 

Ellisland, 4th June 1789. 

Dear Sir, — Though I am not without my fears respecting my 
fate at that grand, universal inquest of right and wrong, commonly 
called The Last Day, yet I trust there is one sin which that arch* 
vagabond Satan — who, I understand, is to be king's evidence — 
cannot throw in my teeth ; I mean ingratitude. There is a certain 
pretty large quantum of kindness for which I remain, and from 
inability I fear must still remain, your debtor ; but though unable 
to repay the debt, I assure you, sir, I shall ever warmly remember 
the obligation. It gives me the sincerest pleasure to hear by my 
old acquaintance, Mr Kennedy, that you are, in immortal Allan's 
language, " Hale, and weel, and living ;" and that your charming 
family are well, and promising to be an amiable and respectable 
addition to the company of performers whom the Great Manager 
of the Drama of Man is bringing into action for the succeeding 
age. 

With respect to my welfare, a subject in which you once warmly 
and effectively interested yourself— I am here in my old way, hold- 
ing my plough, marking the growth of my corn, or the health of 
my dairy, and at times sauntering by the delightful windings of 
the Nith — on the margin of which I have built my humble domicile 
— praying for seasonable weather, or holding an intrigue with the 
Muses, the only gipsies with whom I have now any intercourse. As 
I am entered into the holy state of matrimony, I trust my face is 
turned completely Zion-ward ; and as it is a rule with all honest 
fellows to repeat no grievances, I hope that the little poetic licences 
of former days will of course fall under the oblivious influence of 
some good-natured statute of celestial prescription. In my family 
devotion — which, like a good Presbyterian, I occasionally give to 
my household folks — I am extremely fond of the psalm, " Let not 
the errors of my youth," &c, and that other, " Lo, children are 
God's heritage," &c, in which last Mrs Burns — who, by the by, 
has a glorious " wood-note wild" at either old song or psalmody — 
joins me with the pathos of Handel's Messiah. R. B. 



CXCIII. 

TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE; 

Ellislaxd, 8th June 1789. 
AJy dear Friend,— I am perfectly ashamed of myself when I 



burns' LETTERS. 49? 



look at the date of your last. It is not that I forget the friend of 
my heart and the companion of my peregrinations, but I have been 
condemned to drudgery beyond sufferance, though not, thank God, 
beyond redemption. I have had a collection of poems by a lady 
put into my hands to prepare them for the press ; which horrid 
task, with sowing corn with my own hand — a parcel of masons, 
wrights, plasterers, &c, to attend to — roaming on business through 
Ayrshire — all this was against me, and the very first dreadful 
article was of Itself too much for me. 

13th. — I have not had a moment to spare from incessant toil 
since the 8th. Life, my dear sir, is a serious matter. You know 
by experience that a man's individual self is a good deal ; but, 
believe me, a wife and family of children, whenever you have the 
honour to be a husband and a father,will show you that your present 
and most anxious hours of solitude are spent on trifles. The wel- 
fare of those who are very dear to us, — whose only support, hope, 
and stay we are, — this to a generous mind is another sort of more 
important object of care than any concerns whatever which centre 
merely in the individual. On the other hand, let no young, un- 
married, wild dog among you make a song of his pretended liberty 
and freedom from care. If the relations we stand in to king, coun- 
try, kindred, and friends, be anything but the visionary fancier of 
dreaming metaphysicians ; if religion, virtue, magnanimity, gene- 
rosity, humanity, and justice be aught but empty sounds ; then 
the man who may be said to live only for others — for the beloved, 
honourable female, whose tender, faithful embrace endears life, 
and for the helpless little innocents who are to be the men and 
women, the worshippers of his God, the subjects of his king, and 
the support, nay, the very vital existence, of his country, in the 
ensuing age — compare such a man with any fellow whatever, who, 
whether he bustle and push in business among labourers, clerks, 
statesmen ; or whether he roar and rant, and drink and sing in 
taverns — a fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a single 
heigh-ho, except from the cobweb-tie of what is called good- 
fellowship— who has no view nor aim but what terminates in him* 
self— if there be any grovelling, earthborn wretch of our species, 
a renegado to common sense, who would fain believe that the 
noble creature man is no better than a sort of fungus, generated 
out of nothing, nobody knows how, and soon dissipating in nothing 
nobody knows where — such a stupid beast, such a crawling rep- 
tile, might balance the foregoing unexaggerated comparison, but 
no one else would have the patience. 

Forgive me, my dear sir, for tkii long silence. To make you 
amends I shall send you soon, and more encouraging still, without 
Eny postage, one or two rhymes of my later manufacture. 



1*8 BURNS' LETTERS. 



CXCIV 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 21st June 1789. 

Dear Madam, — Will you take the effusions, the miserable 
effusions, of low spirits just as they flow from their bitter spring ? 
I know not of any particular cause for this worst of all my foes 
besetting me; but for some time my soul has been beclouded with 
a thickening atmosphere of evil imaginations and gloomy presages. 

Monday Evening. 

I have just heard Mr Kirkpatrick preach a sermon. He is a 
man famous for his benevolence, and I revere him ; but from 
such ideas of my Creator, good Lord, deliver me ! Religion, my 
honoured friend, is surely a simple business, as it equally con- 
cerns the ignorant and the learned, the poor and the rich. That 
there is an incomprehensible Great Being, to whom I owe my 
existence, and that he must be intimately acquainted with the 
operations and progress of the internal machinery, and consequent 
outward deportment of this creature which he has made — these 
are, I think, self-evident propositions. That there is a real and 
eternal distinction between virtue and vice, and consequently, 
that I am an accountable creature ; that from the seeming nature 
of the human mind, as well as from the evident imperfection, nay 
positive injustice, in the administration of affairs, both in the 
natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of 
existence beyond the grave — must, I think, be allowed by every 
one who will give himself a moment's reflection. I will go farther, 
and affirm that from the sublimity, excellence, and purity of His 
doctrine and precepts, unparalleled by all the aggregated wisdom 
and learning of many preceding ages, though, to appearance He 
himself was the obscurest and most illiterate of our species — 
therefore Jesus Christ was from God. 

Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of 
others, this is my criterion of goodness ; and whatever injures 
society at large, or any individual in it, this is my measure of 
iniquity. 

What think you, madam, of my creed ? I trust that I have 
laid nothing that will lessen me in the eye of one whose good 
opinion I value almost next to the approbation of my own mind. 

R. B. 



CXCV. 

TO MISS WILLIAMS. 

Ellisland, August 1789 
Madam,-— Of the many problems in the nature of that wonder- 



BURNS LETTERS. 493 



ful creature, man, this is one of the most extraordinary, that he shall 
go on from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, 
or perhaps from year to year, suffering a hundred times more in 
an hour from the impotent consciousness of neglecting what he 
ought to do, than the very doing of it would cost him. I am 
deeply indebted to you, first for an elegant poetic compliment ; 
then for a polite, obliging letter ; and, lastly, for your excellent 
poem on the slave-trade; and yet, wretch that I am! though the 
debts were debts of honour, and the creditor a lady, I have put 
off and put off even the very acknowledgment of the obligation, 
until you must indeed be the very angel I take you for if you 
can forgive me. 

Your poem I have read with the highest pleasure. I have a 
way whenever I read a book — I mean a book in our own trade, 
madam, a poetic one — and when it is my own property, that I 
take a pencil and mark at the ends of verses, or note on margins 
and odd pap&r, little criticisms of approbation or disapprobation 
as I peruse along. I will make no apology for presenting you 
with a few unconnected thoughts that occurred to me in my re- 
peated perusals of your poem. I want to shew you that I have 
honesty enough to tell you what I take to be truths, even when 
they are not quite on the side of approbation ; and I do it in the 
firm faith that you have equal greatness of mind to hear them 
with pleasure. 

I know very little of scientific criticism ; so all I can pretend 
to in that intricate art is merely to note, as I read along, what 
passages strike me as being uncommonly beautiful, and where 
the expression seems to be perplexed or faulty. 

The poem opens finely. There are none of those idle prefatory 
lines which one may skip over before one comes to the subject. 
Verses 9th and 10th in particular — 

" Where ocean's unseen bound 
Leaves a drear world of waters round" — 

are truly beautiful. The simile of the hurricane is likewise fine ; 
and indeed, beautiful as the poem is, almost all the similes rise 
decidedly above it. From verse 31st to verse 50th is a pretty 
eulogy on Britain. Verse 36th, " That foul drama deep with 
wrong," is nobly expressive. Verse 46th, I am afraid, is rather 
unworthy of the rest ; " to dare to feel" is an idea that I do ilot 
altogether like. The contrast of valour and mercy, from the 46th 
verse to the 50th, is admirable. 

Either my apprehension is dull, or* there is something a little 
confused in the apostrophe to Mr Pitt. Verse 55th is the ante* 
cedent to verses 57th and 58th, but in verse 58th the connection 
seems ungrammatical : — ■ 



With no gradations marked their flight* 
But rose at once to glory's height." 



2i 



600 BURNS' LETTERS, 



Ris'n should be the word instead of rose. Try it in prose. Powers 
— their flight marked by no gradations, but [the same powers] 
risen at once to the height of glory. Likewise verse 53d, " For 
this," is evidently meant to lead on the sense of the verses 59th, 
60th, 61st, and 62d ; but let us try how the thread of connection 
runs— 

♦Tor this * * * » 

* * * * * 

The deeds of mercy, that embrace 
A distant sphere, an alien race, 
Shall virtue's lips record, and claim 
The fairest honours of thy name." 

I beg pardon if I misapprehend the matter, but this appears to 
me the only imperfect passage in the poem. The comparison of 
the sunbeam is fine. 

The compliment to the Duke of Richmond is, I hope, as just as 
it is certainly elegant. The thought, 



Sends from her unsullied source, 

The gems ot thought their purest force," 

is exceeding beautiful. The idea, from verse 81st to the 85th, that 
the " blest decree" is like the beams of morning ushering in the 
glorious day of liberty, ought not to pass unnoticed or unapplaud- 
ed. From verse 85th to verse 108th, is an animated contrast be- 
tween the unfeeling selfishness of the oppressor on the one hand, 
and the misery of the captive on the other. Verse 88th might 
perhaps be amended thus: "Nor ever quit her narrow maze." 
We are said to pass a bound, but we quit a maze. Verse 100th ia 
exquisitely beautiful — 

" They, whom wasted blessings tire." 

Verse 110th is, I doubt, a clashing of metaphors ; * to load a 
span" is, I am afraid, an unwarrantable expression. In verse 
114th, "Cast the universe in shade/' is a fine idea. From the 
115th verse to the 142d is a striking description of the wrongs of 
the poor African. Verse 120th, " The load of unremitted pain," 
Is a remarkable, strong expression. The address to the advocates 
for abolishing the slave trade, from verse 143d to verse 208th, is 
animated with the true life of genius. The picture of oppres- 
sion— 

" While she links her impious chain, 
And calculates the price of pain; 
"Weighs agony in sordid scales, 
And marks if life or death prevails''— 

is nobly executed. 

"What a tender idea is in verse 180th ! Indeed that whole de- 
scription of home may vie with Thomson's description of home, 
somewhere in the beginning of his Autumn, I do not remember 



BURNS* LETTERS. 5 J 



to have seen a stronger expression of misery than is contained in I 
these versos — 

** Condemned, severe extreme, to live 
When all is fled that life can give." 

The comparison of our distant joys to distant objects is equally 
original and striking. 

The character and manners of the dealer in the infernal traffio j 
is a well done, though a horrid picture. I am not sure how far 
introducing the sailor was right; for though the sailor's common 
characteristic is generosity, yet in this case he is certainly not 
only an unconcerned witness, but in some degree an efficient agent 
in the business. Verse 224th is a nervous .... expressive — ' * The 
heart conclusive anguish breaks." The description of the captive 
wretch when he arrives in the West Indies is carried on with 
equal spirit. The thought that the oppressor's sorrow on seeing 
the slave pine, is like the butcher's regret when his destined lamb 
dies a natural death, is exceedingly fine. 

I am got so much into the cant of criticism, that I begin to be 
afraid lest I have nothing except the cant of it; and instead of 
elucidating my author, am only benighting myself. For this rea- 
son, I will not pretend to go through the whole poe'm. Some few 
remaining beautiful lines, however, I cannot pass over. Verse 
280th is the strongest description of selfishness I ever saw. The 
comparison in verses 285th and 286th is new and fine ; and the 
line, " your arms to penury you lend," is excellent. 

In verse 317th, " like" should certainly be " as" or " so ;" for 
instance — 

u His sway the hardened bosom leads 
To cruelty's remorseless deeds: 
As (or, so) the blue lightning when it springs 
With fury on its livid wings, 
Darts on the goal with rapid force, 
Nor heeds that ruin marks its course." 

If you insert the word "like" where I have placed "as" you 
must alter "darts" to "darting," and "heeds" to "heeding," in 
order to make it grammar. A tempest is a favourite subject with 
the poets, but I do not remember anything, even in Thomson's 
Winter, superior to your verses from the 347th to the 351st. In- 
deed, the last simile, beginning with " Fancy may dress," &c, 
and ending with the 350th verse, is, in my opinion, the most beau- 
tiful passage in the poem ; it would do honour to the greatest 
names that ever graced our profession. 

I will not beg your pardon, madam, for these strictures, as my 
conscience tells me that for once in my life I have acted up to the 
duties of a Christian, in doing as I would be done by. 

I had lately the honour of a letter from Dr Moore, where he 
tells me that he has sent me some books ; they are not yet come 
to hand, but I hear they are on the way. 



BURNS LETTERS. 



"Wishing you all success in your progress in the path of fame, 
and that you may equally escape the danger of stumbling through 
incautious speed, or losing ground through loitering neglect. I 
sin, &c, R, B. 



CXCVI. 
TO MR JOHN LOGAN. 

Ellisland, near Dumfries, 1th Aug. 1789. 
Dear Sir, — I intended to have written you long ere now, and 
as I told you I had gotten three stanzas and a half on my way in 
a poetic epistle to you ; but that old enemy of all good works, the 
devil, threw me into a prosaic mire, and for the soul of me, I can- 
not get out of it. I dare not write you a long letter, as I am going 
to intrude on your time with a long ballad. I have, as you will 
shortly see, finished The Kirk's Alarm ; but, now that it is done, 
and that I have laughed once or twice at the conceits in some ot 
the stanzas, I am determined not to let it get into the public ; so 
I send you this copy, the first that I have sent to Ayrshire, 
except some few of the stanzas which I wrote off in embryo for 
Gavin Hamilton, under the express provision and request that you 
will only read it to a few of us, and do not on any account give 
or permit to be taken any copy of the ballad. If I could be of 
any service to Dr M'Gill I would do it, though it should be at a 
much greater expense than irritating a few bigoted priests ; but 
I am afraid serving him in his present embarras is a task too hard 
for me. I have enemies enow, though I do not wantonly add to 
the number. Still, as I think there is some merit in two or three 
of the thoughts, I send it to you as a small, but sincere testimony 
how much, and with what respectful esteem, I am, dear sir, your 
obliged humble servant, R. B. 



CXCVIL 
TO MR [PETER STUART.] 

[September] 1789. 

My dear Sir,— The hurry of a farmer in this particular season, 
and the indolence of a poet at all times and seasons, will, I hope, 
plead my excuse for neglecting so long to answer your obliging 
letter of the 5th of August. 

That you have done well in quitting your laborious concern in 
* * * I do not doubt ; the weighty reasons you mention were, I 
hope, very, and deservedly indeed, weighty ones, and your health 
is a matter of the last importance ; but whether the remaining 
proprietors of the paper have also done well, is what I much doubt. 



BURNS LETTERS. 505 

The [Star], so far as I was a reader, exhibited such a brilliancy of 
point, such an elegance of paragraph, and such a variety of intelli- 
gence, that I can hardly conceive it possible to continue a daily 
paper in the same degree of excellence : but if there was a man 
who had abilities equal to the task, that man's assistance the pro- 
prietors have lost. 

When I received your letter, I was transcribing for [the Star] 
my letter to the magistrates of the Canongate, Edinburgh, begging 
their permission to place a tombstone over poor Fergusson, and 
their edict in consequence of my petition ; but now I shall send 

them . Poor Fergusson ! If there be a life beyond the 

grave, which I trust there is ; and if there be a good God presid- 
ing over all nature, which I am sure there is — thou art now enjoy- 
ing existence in a glorious world, where worth of the heart alone 
is distinction in the man ; where riches, deprived of all their 
pleasure-purchasing powers, return to their native sordid matter ; 
where titles and honours are the disregarded reveries of an idle 
dream ; and where that heavy virtue, which is the negative conse- 
quence of steady dulness, and those thoughtless, though often 
destructive follies, which are the unavoidable aberrations of frail 
human nature, will be thrown into equal oblivion as if they had 
never been ! 

Adieu, my dear sir ! So soon as your present views and schemes 
are concentred in an aim, I shall be glad to hear from you, as 
your welfare and happiness is by no means a subject indifferent to, 
yours, R. B. 



CXCVIII. 
TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellislaxd, 6th Sept. 1789. 

Dear Madam, — I have mentioned in my last my appointment 
to the Excise, and the birth of little Frank ; who, by the by, I 
trust will be no discredit to the honourable name of Wallace, as 
he has a fine manly countenance, and a figure that might do credit 
to a little fellow two months older ; and likewise an excellent good 
temper, though when he pleases he has a pipe, only not quite so 
loud as the horn that his immortal namesake blew as a signal to 
take out the pin of Stirling Bridge. 

I had some time ago an epistle — part poetic and part prosaic — 
from your poetess, Mrs J. Little, a very ingenious but modest 
composition. I should have written her as she requested, but for 
the hurry of this new business. I have heard of her and her com- 
positions in this country, and, I am happy to add, always to the 
honour of her character. The fact is, I know not well how to 
write to her. I should sit down to a sheet of paper that I kne^f 



504 BURNS' LETTERS. 



not how to stain. I am no dab at fine-drawn letter-writing ; and 
except when prompted by friendship or gratitude, or, which hap- 
pens extremely rarely, inspired by the Muse (I know not her 
name) that presides over epistolary writing, I sit down, when 
necessitated to write, as I would sit down to beat hemp. 

Some parts of your letter of the 20th August struck me with the 
most melancholy concern for the state of your mind at present. 

Would I could write you a letter of comfort, I would sit down 
to it with as much pleasure as I would to write an epic poem of 
my own composition, that should equal the Iliad, Religion, my dear 
friend, is the true comfort ! A strong persuasion in a future 
state of existence ; a proposition so obviously probable, that, 
setting revelation aside, every nation and people, so far as in- 
vestigation has reached, for at least near four thousand years, 
have, in some mode or other, firmly believed it. In vain would 
we reason and pretend to doubt. I have myself done so to a very 
daring pitch ; but when I reflected that I was opposing the most 
ardent wishes, and the most darling hopes of good men, and flying 
in the face of all human belief, in all ages, I was shocked at my 
own conduct. 

I know not whether I have ever sent you the following lines, or 
if you have ever seen them ; but it is one of my favourite quota- 
tions, which I keep constantly by me in my progress through life, 
in the language of the book of Job, 

" Against the day of battle and of war.'* 

Spoken of religion : 

M 'Tis this, my friend, that streaks our morning bright, 
'Tis this that gilds the horror of our night. 
When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few 
When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue; 

"'Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart, 
Disarms affliction, or repels his dart; 
Within the breast bids purest raptures rise, 
Bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies," 

I have been busy with Zeluco. The doctor is so obliging as to 
request my opinion of it ; and I have been revolving in my mind 
some kind of criticisms on novel-writing, but it is a depth beyond 
my research. I shall, however, digest my thoughts on the sub- 
ject as well as I can. Zeluco is a most sterling performance. 

R. B. 



CXCIX. 

TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL, CARSE. 

Ellisland, lBth Oct. 1789. 
Sir, — Big with the idea of this important day at Friars' Carse, 
I have watched the elements and skies in the full persuasion that 
they would announce it to the astonished world by some phe- 



BURNS' letters. 



nomena of terrific portent. Yesternight until a very late hour 
did I wait with anxious horror for the appearance of some comet 
firing half the sky ; or aerial armies of sanguinary Scandinavians 
darting athwart the startled heavens, rapid as the ragged light- 
ning, and horrid as those convulsions of nature that bury nations. 

The elements, however, seem to take the matter very quietly : 
they did not even usher in this morning with triple suns and a 
shower of blood, symbolical of the three potent heroes, and the 
mighty claret-shed of the day. 

I have some misgivings that I take too much upon me, when I 
request you to get your guest, Sir Robert Lawrie, to frank the 
two enclosed covers for me ; the one of them to Sir "William Cun- 
ningham of Robertland, Bart, at Kilmarnock — the other, to Mr 
Allan Masterton, writing-master, Edinburgh. The first has a 
kindred claim on Sir Robert, as being a brother baronet, and 
likewise a keen Foxite ; the other is one of the worthiest men in 
the world, and a man of real genius ; so, allow me to say, he has 
a fraternal claim on you. I want them franked for to-morrow, 
as 1 cannot get them to the post to-night. I shall send a servant 
again for them in the evening. Wishing that your head may be 
crowned with laurels to-night, and free from aches to-morrow, I 
have the honour to be, sir, your deeply indebted, humble servant, 

R. B. 



CC. 

TO FRANCIS GROSE, ESQ., F.S.A. 

Sir, — Ibelieve among all our Scots literati you have not met with 
Professor Dugald Stewart, who fill3 the moral philosophy chair 
in the University of Edinburgh. To say that he is a man of the 
first parts, and, what is more, a man of the first worth, to a gen- 
tleman of your general acquaintance, and who so much enjoys the 
luxury of unencumbered freedom and undisturbed privacy, is not 
perhaps recommendation enough ; but when I inform you that 
Mr Stewart's principal characteristic is your favourite feature — 
that sterling independence of mind which, though every man's 
right, so few men have the courage to claim, and fewer still the 
magnanimity to support; when I tell you that, unseduced by 
splendour and undisgusted by wretchedness, he appreciates the 
merits of the various actors in the great drama of life, merely as 
they perform their-parts — in short, he is a man after your own 
heart, and I comply with his earnest request in letting 3 r ou know 
that he wishes above all things to meet with you. His house 
Catrine, is within less than a mile of Sorn Castle, which you pro- 
posed visiting ; or if you could transmit him the enclosed, ho 
Trould, with the greatest pleasure, meet you anywhere in the 



506 BURNS' LETTER?. 



neighbourhood. I write to Ayrshire to inform Mr Stewart that 
I have acquitted myself of my promise. Should your time and 
spirits permit your meeting with Mr Stewart, 'tis well ; if not, 1 
I hope you will forgive this liberty, and I have at least an oppor- 
tunity of assuring you with what truth and respect I am, sir, 
your great admirer and very humble servant, R. B. 



CCI. 

TO MR ROBERT ALNSLIE. 

Ellisland, 1st Nov. 1789. 

My dear Friend,— I had written you long ere now, could I 
have guessed where to find you, for I am sure you have more 
good sense than to waste the precious days of vacation-time in 
the dirt of business and Edinburgh. Wherever you are, God 
bless you, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver you from 
evil! 

I do not know if I have informed you that I am now appointed 
to an Excise division, in the middle of which my house and farm 
lie. In this I was extremely lucky. Without ever having been 
an expectant, as they call their journeyman excisemen, I was 
directly planted down to all intents and purposes an officer of 
Excise, there to flourish and bring forth fruits — worthy of repent- 
ance. 

I know not how the word exciseman, or, still more opprobrious, 
gauger, will sound in your ears. I too have seen the day when 
my auditory nerves would have felt very delicately on this subject ; 
but a wife and children are things which have a wonderful power 
in blunting these kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year for 
life, and a provision for widows and orphans, you will allow is no 
bad settlement for a poet. For the ignominy of the profession, 1 
have the encouragement which I once heard a recruiting sergeant 
give to a numerous, if not a respectable audience in the streets of 
Kilmarnock : u Gentleman, for your further and better encourage- 
ment, I can assure you that our regiment is the most blackguard 
corps under the crown, and consequently with us an honest fellow 
has the surest chance of preferment." 

You need not doubt that I find several very unpleasant and dis- 
agreeable circumstances in my business ; but I am tired with and 
disgusted at the language of complaint against the evils of life. 
Human existence in the most favourable situations does not abound 
with pleasures^ and has its inconveniences and ills : capricious, 
foolish man mistakes these inconveniences and ills as if they were 
the peculiar property of his particular situation ; and hence that 
eternal fickleness, that love of change, which has ruined, and 
daily does ruin, many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead, 



BURNS' LETTERS. 50? 



and is almost without exception a constant source of disappoint- 
ment and misery. 

I long to hear from you how you go on — not so much in business 
as in life. Are you pretty well satisfied with your own exer- 
tions, and tolerably at ease in your internal reflections ? *Tis 
much to be a great character as a lawyer, but beyond comparison 
more to be a great character as a man. That you may be both 
the one and the other is the earnest wish, and that you will be 
be both is the firm persuasion of, my dear sir, &c, R. B. 



ecu. 

TO MR RICHARD BROWN. 

Ellisland, Wh November 1789. 
I have been so hurried, my ever-dear friend, that though I got 
both your letters, I have not been able to command an hour to 
answer them as I wished ; and even now, you are to look on this 
as merely confessing debt and craving days. Few things could 
have given me so much pleasure as the news that you were once 
more safe and sound on terra firma, and happy in that place 
where happiness is alone to be found — in the fireside circle. May 
the benevolent Director of all things peculiarly bless you in all 
those endearing connections consequent on the tender and vene- 
rable names of husband and father! I have indeed been extremely 
lucky in getting an additional income of L.50 a year, while, at the 
same time, the appointment will not cost me above L.10 or L.12 
per annum of expenses more than I must have inevitably incurred. 
The worst circumstance is, that the Excise division which I have 
got is so extensive — no less than ten parishes to ride over — and it 
abounds, besides, with so much business, that I can scarcely steal 
a spare moment. However, labour endears rest, and both toge- 
ther are absolutely necessary for the proper enjoyment of human 
existence. I cannot meet you anywhere. No less than an order 
from the Board of Excise at Edinburgh is necessary, before I can 
have so much time as to meet you in Ayrshire. But do you come 
and see me. We must have a social day, and perhaps lengthen it 
out with half the night, before you go again to sea. You are the 
earliest friend I now have on earth, my brothers excepted ; and is 
not that an endearing circumstance ? When you and I first met, 
we were at the green period of human life. The twig would 
easily take a bent, but would as easily return to its former, state. 
You and I not only took a mutual bent, but, by the melancholy, 
though strong influence of being both of the family of the unfor- 
tunate, we were intwined with one another in our growth towards 
advanced age ; and blasted be the sacrilegious hand that ghal] 



808 BURNS* LETTERS. 

attempt to undo the union ! You and I must have one bumper 
to my favourite toast — " May the companions of our youth be the 
friends of our old age !" Come and see me one year ; I shall sec 
you at Port-Glasgow the next, and if we can contrive to have a 
gossipping between our two bedfellows, it will be so much addi- 
tional pleasure. Mrs Burns joins me in kind compliments to you 
and Mrs Brown. Adieu ! I am ever, my dear sir, yours, R. B. 



CCIII. 

TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ. OF FINTRY, 

2th December 1789. 

Sir, — I have a good while had a wish to trouble you with a 
letter, and had certainly done it long ere now but for a humiliat- 
ing something that throws cold water on the resolution, as if one 
should say, — " You have found Mr Graham a very powerful and 
kind friend indeed, and that interest he is so kindly taking in 
your concerns you ought, by everything in your power, to keep 
alive and cherish." Now, though, since God has thought proper 
to make one powerful and another helpless, the connection of 
obliger and obliged is all fair ; and though in,y being under your 
patronage is to me highly honourable, yet, sir, allow me to flatter 
myself that as a poet and an honest man you first interested your- 
self in my welfare, and principally as such still you permit me to 
approach you. 

I have found the Excise business go on a great deal smoother 
with me than I expected, owing a good deal to the generous 
friendship of Mr Mitchel, my collector, and the kind assistance of 
Mr Findlater, my supervisor. I dare to be honest, and I fear no 
labour. Nor do I find my hurried life greatly inimical to my 
correspondence with the Muses. Their visits to me, indeed, and 
[ believe to most of their acquaintance, like the visits of good 
angels, are short and far between ; but I meet them now and then 
as I jog through the hills of Nithsdale, just as I used to do on the 
banks of Ayr. 1 take the liberty to enclose you a few bagatelles, 
all of them the productions of my leisure thoughts in my Excise 
rides. 

If you know or have ever seen, Captain Grose, the antiquary, 
you will enter into any humour that is in the verses on him 
(p. 149). Perhaps you have seen them before, as I sent them to 
a London newspaper. Though I daresay you have none of the 
Solemn-League-and-Covenant fire which shown so conspicuous in 
Lord George Gordon and the Kilmarnock weavers, yet I think you 
must have heard of Dr M'Gill, one of the clergymen of Ayr, and 
his heretical book. Though he is one of the worthiest, as well a.^ 



BURNS' LETTERS. 609 

one of the ablest, of the whole priesthood of the Kirk of Scotland, 
in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet the poor doctor and 
his numerous family are in imminent danger of being thrown out 
to the mercy of the winter winds. The enclosed ballad on that 
business is, I confess, too local ; but I laughed myself at some 
conceits in it, though I am convinced in my conscience that there 
are a good many heavy stanzas in it too. 

The election ballad {The Five Carlznes, p. 150), as you will 
see, alludes to the present canvass in our string of boroughs.* I 
do not believe there will be such a hard-run match in the whole 
general election. * * * 

I am too little a man to have any political attachments : I am 
deeply indebted to, and have the warmest veneration for, indi- 
viduals of both parties ; but a man who has it in his power to be 
the father of a country, and who * * * *, is a character that one 
cannot speak of with patience. 

Sir James Johnston does " what man can do," but yet I doubt 
his fate. R. B. 



CCIV. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellislaxd, 13th December 1789. 
Many thanks, my dear madam, for your sheetful of rhymes. 
Though at present I am below the veriest prose, yet from you 
everything pleases. I am groaning under the miseries of a di- 
seased nervous-system — a system the state of which is most 
conducive to our happiness or the most productive of our misery. 
For now near three weeks I have been so ill with a nervous head- 
ache that I have been obliged for a time to give up my Excise- 
books, being scarce able to lift my head, much less to ride once a 
week over ten muir parishes. What is man ? To-day, in the 
luxuriance of health, exulting in the enjoyment of existence ; in 
a few days, perhaps in a few hours, loaded with conscious painful 
being, counting the tardy pace of the lingering moments by the 
repercussions of anguish, and refusing or denied a comforter. 
Day follows night, and night comes after day, only to curse him 
with life which gives him no pleasure ; and yet the awful, dark 
termination of that life is something at which he recoils. 

" Tell us, ye dead; will none of you in pity 
Disclose the secrets * * * 

What 'tis you are, and tee must shortly be f 

* * * 'tis no matter : ■ 

A little time will make us learned as you are.'' 

Can it be possible, that when I resign this frail, feverish being, 
I shall still find myself in conscious existence ? ' "When the last 

* Maggy— Dumfries ; Blinking Bess— Annandale ; WhisJcy Jean— Kirkcudbright 
Black Joan — Sanquhar ; Marjory — Lochmaben. 



BURNS* LETTERS. 



gasp of agony has announced that I am no more to those that 
knew me and the few who loved me ; when the cold, stiffened, 
unconscious, ghastly corse is resigned into the earth, to be the 
prey of unsightly reptiles, and to becomo in time a trodden clod, 
shall I be yet warm in life, seeing and seen, enjoying and enjoyed? 
Ye venerable sages and holy flamens, is there probability in your 
conjectures, truth in your stories, of another world beyond death ; 
or are they all alike baseless visions and fabricated fables. If 
there is another life, it must be only for the just, the benevolent, 
the amiable, and the humane ; what a flattering idea, then, is a 
world to come ! Y r ould to God I as firmly believed it as I ardently 
wish it ! There I should meet an aged parent, now at rest from 
the many buffetings of an evil world, against which he so long 
and so bravely struggled. There should I meet the friend, the 
disinterested friend, of my early life ; the man who rejoiced to see 
me, because he loved me and could serve me. Muir, thy weak- 
nesses were the aberrations of human nature, but thy heart glowed 
with everything generous, manly, and noble ; and if ever emana- 
tion from the All-good Being animated a human form, it was thine ! 
There should I, with speechless agony of rapture, again recognise 
my lost, my ever-dear Mary ! whose bosom was fraught with truth, 
honour, constancy, and love. 

My Mary, dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy place of heavenly rest f 
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast! 

Jesus Christ, thou amiablest of characters I trust thou art no 
impostor, and that thy revelation of blissful scenes of existence 
beyond death and the grave is not one of the many impositions 
which time after time have been palmed on credulous mankind. 
I trust that in thee " shall all the families of the earth be bles^d," 
by being yet connected together in a better world, where every tie 
that bound heart to heart in this state of existence shall be, far 
beyond our present conceptions, more endearing. 

I am a good deal inclined to think with those who maintain 
that what are called nervous affections are in fact diseases of the 
mind. I cannot reason, I cannot think ; and but to you I would 
not venture to write anything above an order to a cobbler. You 
have felt too much of the ills of life not to sympathize with a 
diseased wretch who has impaired more than half of any faculties 
he possessed. Your goodness will excuse this distracted scrawl, 
which the writer dare scarcely read, and which he would throw 
into the fire were he able to write anything better, or indeed any- 
thing at all. 

Rumour told me something of a son of yours who was returned 
from the East or West Indies. If you have gotten news from 
James or Anthony, it was cruel in you not to let me know ; as I 
promise you, on the sincerity of a man who is weary of one world, 



BURNS' LETTERS. 511 



and anxious about another, that scarce anything could give me 
bo much pleasure as to hear of any good thing befalling my 
honoured friend. 

If you have a minute's leisure, take up your pen in pity to 
Is pauvre miserable R. B. 



COY. 
TO LADY WINIFRED MAXWELL CONSTABLE. 

Ellisland, lGth December 1789. 
My Lady, — In vain have I from day to day expected to hear 
from Mrs Young, as she promised me at Dalswinton that she 
would do me the honour to introduce me at Tinwald ; and it was 
impossible, not from your ladyship's accessibility, but from my 
own feelings, that I could go alone. Lately, indeed, Mr Maxwell of 
Carruchan, in his usual goodness, offered to accompany me, when 
an unlucky indisposition on my part hindered my embracing the 
opportunity. To court the notice or the tables of the great, except 
where I sometimes have had a little matter to ask of them, or 
more often the pleasanter task of witnessing my gratitude to them, 
is what I never have done, and I trust never shall do. But with 
your ladyship I have the honour to be connected by one of the 
strongest and most endearing ties in the whole moral world. 
Common sufferers in a cause where even to be unfortunate is 
glorious — the cause of heroic loyalty ! Though my fathers had 
not illustrious honours and vast properties to hazard in the con- 
test, though they left their humble cottages only to add so many 
units more to the unnoted crowd that followed their leaders, yet 
what they could they did, and what they had they lost : with un- 
shaken firmness and unconcealed political attachments, they shook 
hands with ruin for what they esteemed the cause of their king and 
their country. This language and the enclosed verses are for your 
ladyship's eye alone. Poets are not very famous for their pru- 
dence ; but as I can do nothing for a cause which is now nearly 
no more, I do not wish to hurt myself. I have the honour to be, 
my lady, your ladyship's obliged and obedient humble servant, 

R. B. 



CCYI. 

TO PROYOST MAXWELL, OF LOCHMABEN. * 

Ellisland, 20th December 1789. 
Dear Provost, — As my friend, Mr Graham, goes for your good 
town to-morrow, I cannot resist the temptation to send you a fevj 
lines ; and as I have nothing to say, I have chosen this sheet of 



512 BURNS" LETTERS. 

foolscap, and begun, as you see, at the top of the first page, be- 
cause I have ever observed, that when once people have fairly set 
out, they know not where to stop. Now that my first sentence is 
concluded, I have nothing to do but to pray Heaven to help ine 
on to another. Shall I write you on politics, or religion, two 
master-subjects for your sayers of nothing? Of the first, I dare- 
say by this time you are nearly surfeited ; and for the last, what- 
ever they may talk of it who make it a kind of company-concern, 
I never could endure it beyond a soliloquy. I might write you 
on farming, on building, on marketing ; but my poor distracted 
mind is so torn, so jaded, so racked with the task of making one 
guinea do the business of three, that I detest, abhor, and swoon at 
the very word business, though no less than four letters of mv 
very short surname are in it. 

Well, to make the matter short, I shall betake myself to a sub- 
ject ever fruitful of themes — a subject the turtle-feast of the son3 
of Satan, and the delicious secret sugar-plum of the babes of grace 
— a subject sparkling with all the jewels that wit can find in the 
mines of genius, and pregnant with all the stores of learning from 
Moses Skid Confucius to Franklin and Priestley — in short, may 
it please your lordship, I intend to write * * * 

If at any time you expect a field-day ia your town — a day when 
dukes, earls, and knights pay their court to weavers, tailors, and 
cobblers— I should like to know of it two or three days beforehand. 
It is not that I care three skips of a cur-dog for the politics, but I 
should like to see such an exhibition of human nature. If you 
meet with that worthy old veteran in religion and good-fellowship, 
Mr Jeffrey, or any of his amiable family, I beg you will give them 
my best compliments. R. B. 



CCVII. 

TO THE COUNTESS OF GLENCAIRN. 

Elltsland, December 1789. 
My Lady, — The honour you have done your poor poet in writ- 
ing him so very an obliging letter, and the pleasure the enclosed 
beautiful verses have given him, came very seasonably to his aid 
amid the cheerless gloom and sinking despondency of diseased 
nerves and December weather. As to forgetting the family of 
Glencairn, Heaven is my witness with what sincerity I could uso 
those old verses, which please me more in their rude simplicity 
ikanthe most elegant lines I ever saw — 

*'If thee, Jerusalem, I forget. 

Skill part from my right hand. 
My tongue to my mouth's roof let cleave. 

If I do thee forget, 
Jerusalem, and thee above 

My chief joy do not not." 



BURNS' LETTERS. 518 



When I am tempted to do anything improper, I dare not, be- 
cause I look on myself as accountable to your ladyship and family. 
Now and then, when I have the honour to be called to the tables 
of the great, if I happen to meet with any mortification from the 
stately stupidity of self-sufficient squires, or the luxurious insolence 
of upstart nabobs, I get above the creatures by calling to remem- 
brance that I am patronized by the noble House of Glencairn ; 
and at gala times — such as Xew-Years Day. a christening, or the 
kirn-night, when my punch-bowl is brought from its dusty corner, 
and filled up in honour of the occasion, 1 begin with — The Countess 
of Glencairn ! My good woman, with the enthusiasm of a grateful 
heart, next cries — My Lord! and so the toast goes on until I end 
with — Lady Harriett little angel! whose epithalamium I have 
pledged myself to write. 

When I received your ladyship's letter I was just in the act of 
transcribing for you some verses I have lately composed, and 
meant to have sent them my first leisure hour, and acquainted 
you with my late change of life. I mentioned to my lord my fears 
concerning my farm. Those fears were indeed too true ; it ifl a 
bargain would have ruined me but for the lucky circumstance of 
my having an Excise commission. 

People may talk as they please of the ignominy of the Excise ; 
L.50 a year will support my wife and children, and keep me inde- 
pendent of the world ; and I would much rather have it said that 
my profession borrowed credit from me, than that I borrowed 
credit from my profession. Another advantage I have in this 
business is the knowledge it gives me of the various shades of 
human character, consequently assisting me vastly in my poetic 
pursuits. I had the most ardent enthusiasm for the Muses when 
nobody knew me but myself, and that ardour i3 by no means 
cooled now that my Lord Glencairn's goodness has introduced me 
to all the world. Not that I am in haste for the press. I have 
no idea of publishing, else I certainly had consulted my noble, 
generous patron; but after acting the part of an honest man, and 
supporting my family, my whole wishes and views are directed to 
poetic pursuits. I am aware that though I were to give per- 
formances to the world superior to my former works, still, if they 

I were of the same kind with those, the comparative reception they 

j would meet with would mortify me. I have turned my thoughts 
on the drama. I do not mean the stately buskin of the tragic 
Muse. Does not your ladyship think that an Edinburgh theatre 
would be more amused with affectation, folly, and whim of true 

, Scottish growth, than manners, which by far the greatest part 
of the audience can only know at second-hand ? I have the 

, honour to be your ladyship's erer devoted and grateful humble 
servant, R. B. 



514 BUB NS* LETTERS. 



CCYIII. 

TO MR GILBERT BURNS. 

Ellisland, 11th January 1790. 

Dear Brother, — I mean to take advantage of the frank, 
though I have not in my present frame of mind much appetite for 
exertion in writing. My nerves are in a bad state. I feel that 
horrid hypochondria pervading every atom of both body and 
soul. This farm has undone my enjoyment of myself. It is a 
ruinous affair on all hands. I'll fight it out, and be off with it; 

We have got a set of very decent players here just now. I 
have seen them an evening or two. David Campbell, in Ayr, 
wrote to me by the manager of the company — a Mr Sutherland, 
who is a man of apparent worth. On New-Year's-Day evening I 
gave him the following prologue (Prologue,]?. 153), which he spouted 
to his audience with applause. 

I can no more. If once I was clear of this farm, I sbould re- 
spire more at ease. R. B. 



CCIX. 

TO MR WILLIAM DUNBAR, W.S. 

Ellisland, 14th January 1790. 
Since we are here creatures of a day — since " a few summer 
days, and a few winter nights, and the life of man is at an end" — 
why, my dear, much-esteemed sir, should you and I let negligent 
indolence — for I know it is nothing worse — step in between U3 
and bar the enjoyment of a mutual correspondence ? "VVe are 
not shapen out of the common, heavy, methodical clod, the ele- 
mental stuff of the plodding selfish race, the sons of Arithmetic 
and Prudence ; our feelings and hearts are not benumbed and 
poisoned by the cursed influence of riches, which, whatever 
blessing they may be in other respects, are no friends to the 
nobler qualities of the heart : in the name of random sensibility, 
then, let never the moon change on our silence any more. I 
have had a tract of bad health most part of this winter, else you 
had heard from me long ere now. Thank Heaven, I am now got 
sc much better as to be able to partake a little in the enjoyments 
of life. 

Our friend Cunningham will perhaps have told you of my 
going into the Excise. The truth is, I found it a very convenient 
business to have L.50 per annum, nor have I yet felt any of those 
mortifying circumstances in it that I was led to fear. 

Feb. 2d. — I have not, for sheer hurry of business, been able to 
spare five minutes to finish my letter, Besides my farm business, 



BURNS LETTERS 515 



I ride on my Excise matters at least 200 miles every week. I 
have not by any means given up the Muses. You will see in the 
third volume of Johnson's Scots Songs that I have contributed 
my mite there. 

But, my dear sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal 
protection are an important charge. I have already two fine, 
healthy, stout little fellows, and I wish to throw some light upon 
them. I have a thousand reveries and schemes about them and 
their future destiny — not that I am a Utopian projector in these 
things. I am resolved never to breed up a son of mine to any of 
the learned professions. I know the value of independence ; and 
since I cannot give my sons an independent fortune, I shall give 
them an independent line of life. "What a chaos of hurry, chance, 
and changes is this world, when one sits soberly down to reflect 
on it ! To a father, who himself knows the world, the thought 
that he shall have sons to usher into it must fill him with dread ; 
but if he have daughters, the prospect in a thoughtful moment is 
apt to shock him. 

I hope Mrs Fordyce and the two young ladies are well. Do 
let me forget that they are nieces of yours, and let me say that 
I never saw a more interesting, sweeter pair of sisters in my 
life. I am the fool of my feelings and attachments. I often take 
up a volume of my Spenser to realize you to my imagination, and 
think over the social scenes we have had together. God grant 
that there may be another world more congenial to honest fel- 
lows beyond this— a world where these rubs and plagues of 
absence, distance, misfortunes, ill health, &c, shall no more 
damp hilarity and divide friendship. This, I know, is your 
throng season ; but half a page will much oblige, my dear sir, 
yours sincerely, R. B. 



ccx. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellislasd, 25th January 1790. 

It has been owing to unremitting hurry of business that I have 
not written to you, madam, long ere now. My health is greatly 
better, and I now begin once more to share in satisfaction and 
enjoyment with the rest of my fellow-creatures. 

Many thanks, my much-esteemed friend, for your kind letters; 
but why will you make me run the risk of being contemptible and 
mercenary in my own eyes ? When I pique myself on my inde- 
pendent spirit, I hope it is neither poetic license nor poetic rant : 
and I am so flattered with the honour you have done me, in making 
me your compeer in friendship anc? friendly correspondence, that 



516 BUKNS' LETTERS. 



I cannot, without pain and a- degree of mortification, be reminded 
of the real inequality between our situations. 

Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear madam, in the good 
news of Anthony. Not only your anxiety about his fate, but my 
own esteem for such a noble, warm-hearted, manly young fellow, 
in the little I had of his acquaintance, has interested me deeply 
in his fortunes. 

Falconer, the unfortunate author of the Shipwreck, which you 
bo much admire, is no more. After witnessing the dreadful catas- 
trophe he so feelingly describes in his poem, and after weathering 
many hard gales of fortune, he went to the bottom with the 
Aurora frigate ! 

I forget what part of Scotland had the honour of giving him 
birth, but he was the son of obscurity and misfortune. He was 
one of those daring, adventurous spirits which Scotland, beyond 
any other country, is remarkable for producing. Little does the 
fond mother think as she hangs delighted over the sweet little 
leech at her bosom, where the poor fellow may hereafter wander, 
and what may be his fate. I remember a stanza in an old Scottish 
ballad, which, notwithstanding its rude simplicity, speaks feelingly 
to the heart — 

" Little did my mother think, 
That day she cradled me, 
What land I was to travel in, 
Or what death I should die ! * 

Old Scottish songs are, you know, a favourite study and pursuit 
of mine ; and now I am on that subject, allow me to give you two 
stanzas of another old simple ballad, which I am sure will please 
you. The catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female lament- 
ing her fate. She concludes with this pathetic wish — 

" O that my father had ne'er on me smiled ; 

O that my mother had ne'er to me sung ! 
O that my cradle had never been rocked; 

But that I had died when I was young! 
• 4 that the grave it were my bed; 

My blankets were my winding-sheet; 
The clocks and the worms my bed-fellows a 

And, oh, sae sound as I should sleep! " 

I do not remember in all my reading to have met with anything 
more truly the language of misery than the exclamation in the 
last line. Misery is like love ; to speak its language truly, the 
author must have felt it. 

I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson 
the small-pox. They are rife in the country, and I tremble for 
his fate. By the way, I cannot help congratulating you on hi3 
looks and spirit. Every person who sees him acknowledges him 
to be the finest, handsomest child he has ever seen. I am myself 
delighted with the manly swell of his little chest, and a certain 
miniature dignity in the carriage of his head, and the glance of 



BURNS' LETTERS. 517 



liis fine black eye, which promise the undaunted gallantry of an 
independent mind. 

I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. I 
promise you poetry until you are tired of it next time I have the 
honour of assuring you how truly I am, &c, R. E. 



CCXI. 

TO CLARINDA. 

[About February 1790.J 
I have indeed been ill, madam, this whole winter. An inces- 
sant headache, depression of spirits, and all the truly miserable 
consequences of a deranged nervous system, have made dreadful 
havoc of my health and peace. Add to all this, a line of life, into 
which I have lately entered, obliges me to ride upon an average 
at least two hundred miles every week. However, thank Heaven, 
f am now greatly better in my health. * * * * 

I cannot, will not, enter into extenuatory circumstances, else I 
could show you how my precipitate, headlong, unthinking conduct, 
leagued with a conjuncture of unlucky events to thrust me out oi 
a possibility of keeping the path of rectitude ; to curse me by an 
irreconcilable war between my duty and my nearest wishes, and 
to doom me with a choice only of different species of error and 
misconduct. 

I dare not trust myself farther with this subjeet. The following 
song (My Lovely Nancy, p. 237) is one of my latest productions, 
and I send it you as I would do anything else, because it pleases 
myself. Sylvander. 



ccxir. 

TO MR PETER HILL, BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH. 

Ellisland, 2d Feb. 1790. 
No ! I will not say one word about apologies or excuses for not 
writing. I am a poor, rascally gauger, condemned to gallop at 
least 200 miles every week to inspect dirty ponds and yeasty bar- 
rels, and where can I find time to write to, or importance to inte- 
rest anybody ? m The upbraidings of my conscience, nay, the up- 
braidings of my wife, have persecuted me on your account these 
two or three months past. I wish I was a great man, that my 
correspondence might throw light upon you, to let the world see 
what you really are ; and then I would make your fortune, without 
putting my hand in my pocket for you, which, like all other great 
men, I suppose I would avoid as much as possible. What are you 



518 BURNS' LETT1R- 



doing, and how are you doing ? Have you lately seen any of my 
few friends? What has become of the borough reform, or 
how is the fate of my poor namesake Mademoiselle Burns decided? 
Which of their grave lordships can lay his hand on his heart, and 
say that he has not taken advantage of such frailty ? O man ! 
but for thee and thy selfish appetites and dishonest artifices, that 
beauteous form, and that once innocent and still ingenuous mind, 
might have shone conspicuous and lovely in the faithful wife and 
the affectionate mother. 

I saw lately in a review some extracts from a new poem, called 
the Village Curate ,• send it me. I want likewise a cheap copy of 
The World, Mr Armstrong, the young poet, who does me the 
honour to mention me so kindly in his works, please give him my 
best thanks for the copy of his book. I shall write him my first 
leisure hour. I like his poetry much, but I think his style in prose 
quite astonishing. 

What is become of that veteran in genius, wit, and * * * 
Smellie, and his book ? Give him my compliments. Does Mr 
Graham of Gartmore ever enter your shop now ? He is the noblest 
instance of great talents, great fortune, and great worth that ever 
I saw in conjunction. Remember me to Mrs Hill ; and believe 
me to be, my dear sir, ever yours, R. B. 



COXIII. 
TO MR WILLIAM NICOL. 

Ellisla> t d, Feb. 9, 1790. 
My dear Sir, — That mare of yours is dead. I would freely 
have given her price to have saved her ; she has vexed me beyond 
description. Indebted as I was to your goodness beyond what I 
can ever repay, I eagerly grasped at your offer to have the mare 
with me. That I might at least show my readiness in wishing to 
be grateful, I took every care of her in my power. She was never 
crossed for riding above half a score of times by me or in my 
keeping. I drew her in the plough, one of three, for one poor 
week. I refused fifty-five shillings for her, which was the highest 
bode I could squeeze for her. I fed her up, and had her in fine 
order for Dumfries fair ; when, four or five days before the fair, 
she was seized with an unaccountable disorder in the sinews, or 
somewhere in the bones of the neck ; with a weakness or total 
want of power in her fillets ; and, in short, the whole vertebrae of 
her spine seemed to be diseased and unhinged ; and in eight-and- 
forty hours, in spite of the two best farriers in the country, she 
died. The farriers said that she had been quite strained in "the 
fillets beyond cure before you had bought her ; and that the poor 



B UK»S" LETT r.RS. 5 I 3 



creature, though she might k&ep a little flesh, had been jaded and 
quite worn Out with fatigue and oppression. While she was with 
me she was under my own eye, and I assure you, my much-valued 
friend, everything was done for her that could be done ; and the 
accident has vexed me to the heart. In fact, I could not pluck 
up spirits to write to you on account of the unfortunate business. 

There is little new in this country. Our theatrical company, 
of which you must have heard, leave us this week. Their merit 
and character are indeed very great, both on the stage and in 
private life : not a worthless creature among them ; and their 
encouragement has been accordingly. Their usual run is from 
eighteen to twenty-five pounds a night : seldom less than the one, 
and the house will hold no more than the other. There have been 
repeated instances cf sending away six, and eight, and ten pounds 
a night for want of room. A new theatre is to be built by sub- 
scription ; the first stone is to be laid on Friday first to come. 
Three hundred guineas have been raised by thirty subscribers, 
and thirty more might have been got if wanted. The manager, 
Mr Sutherland, was introduced to me by a friend from Ayr ; and 
a worthier or cleverer fellow I have rarely met with. Some of 
our clergy have slipt in by stealth now and then ; but they have 
got up a farce of their own. You must have heard how the Rev. 
Mr Lawson of Kirkmahoe, seconded by the Rev. Mr Kirkpatrick 
of Dunscore, and the rest of that faction, have accused, in formal 
process, the unfortunate and Rev. Mr Heron of Kirkgunzeon, that, 
in ordaining Mr Nielson to the cure of souls in Kirkbean, he, the 
said Heron, feloniously and treasonably bound the said Nielson 
to the confession of faith, so far as it was agreeable to reason and 
the word of God ! 

Mrs B. begs to be remembered most gratefully to you. Little 
Bobby and Frank are charmingly well and healthy. T am jaded 
to death with fatigue. For these two or three months, on an 
average, I have not ridden less than 200 miles per week. I have 
done little in the poetic way. I have given Mr Sutherland two 
Prologues, one of which was delivered last week. I have likewise 
strung four or five barbarous stanzas (p. 155), to the tune of Chevy 
Chase, by way of Elegy on your poor unfortunate mare, beginning 
(the- name she got here was Peg Nicholson). 

My best compliments to Mrs Nicol, and little Xeddy, and all 
the family : I hope Xed is a good scholar, and will come out to 
gather nuts and apples with me next harvest. R. B. 



520 BURNS' LETTERS. 



CCXIV. 

TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 

Ellisland, IZth February 1790. 
I BEG your pardon, my dear and much-valued friend, for writ- 
ing to you on this very unfashionable, unsightly sheet. 

u My poverty but not my will consents." 

But to make amends, since of modish post I have none, except 
one poor widowed half-sheet of gilt, which lies in my drawer, 
among my' plebeian foolscap pages, like the widow of a man of 
fashion whom that unpolite scoundrel, Necessity, has driven from 
Burgundy and Pine-apple to a dish of Bohea with the scandal- 
bearing helpmate of a village priest ; or a glass of whisky-toddy 
with a ruby-nosed yoke-fellow of a foot-padding exciseman — I 
make a vow to enclose this sheetful of epistolary fragments in that 
my only scrap of gilt paper. 

I am indeed your unworthy debtor for three friendly letters. I 
ought to have written to you long ere now ; but it is a literal fact, 
I have scarcely a spare moment. It is not that I will not write 
to you ; Miss Burnet is not more'dear to her guardian angel, nor 
his Grace the Duke of Queensberry to the powers of darkness, 
than my friend Cunningham to me. It is not that I cannot write 
to you ; should you doubt it, take the following fragment, which 
was intended for you some time ago, and be convinced that I 
can antithesize sentiment and circumvolute periods as well as any 
coiner of phrase in the regions of philology. 

December 1789. 

My dear Cunningham,— Where are you? And what are 
you doing ? Can you be that son of levity who takes up a friend- 
ship as he takes up a fashion ? or are you, like some other of the 
worthiest fellows in the world, the victim of indolence, laden with 
fetters of ever-increasing weight ? 

What strange beings we are ? Since we have a portion of 
conscious existence, equally capable of enjoying pleasure, hap- 
piness, and rapture, or of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery 
— it is surely worthy of an inquiry, whether there be not such a 
thing as a science of life ; whether method, economy, and fertility 
of expedients be not applicable to enjoyment ; and whether there 
be not a want of dexterity in pleasure which renders our little 
scantling of happiness still less ; and a profuseness, an intoxica- 
tion in bliss, which leads to satiety, disgust, and self-abhorrence. 
There is not a doubt but that health, talents, character, decent 
competency, respectable friends, are real, substantial blessings ; 
and yet do we not daily sas those who enjoy many or all of these 
good things, contrive, notwithstanding, to be as unhappy as others 
to whose lot few of them have feillen ? I believe one great sourco 



burns' LETTERS. 521 



of this mistake or misconduct is owing to a certain stimulus, with 
us called ambition, which goads us up the hill of life — not as we 
ascend other eminences, for the laudable curiosity of viewing an 
extended landscape — but rather for the dishonest pride of looking 
down on others of our fellow-creatures seemingly diminutive in 
humbler stations, &c. &c. 

Sunday, llth February 1790 
I am now obliged to join 

" Night to day, and Sunday to the week." 

If there be any truth in the orthodox faith of these churches, I am 
past redemption, and what is worse, to all eternity. I am deeply 
read in Boston's Fourfold State, Marshall on Sanctification, Guthrie's 
Trial of a Saving Interest, &c. ; but " there is no balm in Gilead, 
there is no physician there" for me ; so I shall e'en turn Arminian, 
and trust to " sincere though imperfect obedience. " 

Tuesday, 16th. 

Luckily for me, I was prevented from the discussion of the 
knotty point at which T had just made a full stop. All my fears 
and cares are of this world : if there is another, an honest man 
has nothing to fear from it. I hate a man that wishes to be a 
deist ; but I fear, every fair, unprejudiced inquirer must in some 
degree be a sceptic. It is not that there are any very staggering 
arguments against the immortality of man ; but, like electricity, 
phlogiston, &c, the subject is so involved in darkness that we 
want data to go upon. One thing frightens me much : that we 
are to live for ever seems too good news to be true. That we are 
to enter into a new scene of existence, where, exempt from want 
and pain, we shall enjoy ourselves and our friends without satiety 
or separation — how much should I be indebted to any one who 
could fully assure me that this was certain ! 

My time is once more expired. I will write to Mr Cleghorn 

soon. God bless him and all his concerns ! And may all the 

t powers that preside over conviviality and friendship be present 

with all their kindest influence when the bearer of this, Mr Syme, 

and you meet ! I wish I could also make one. 

Finally, brethren, farewell ! Whatsoever things are lovely, 
whatsoever things are gentle, whatsoever things are charitable, > 
whatsoover things are kind, think on these things, and think on 

R. B. 

CCXV. 

TO MR PETER HILL. 

Ellislaxd, 2c? March 1790. 
At a late meeting of the Monkland Friendly Society it waf 
resolved to augment their library by the following books, which 



A22 BURNS' LETTERS. 



you are to send us as soon as possible :— The Mirror, The Lounger 
Man of Feeling, Man of the World (these, for my own sake, I wist 
to have by the first carrier) ; Knox's History of the Reformation ; 
Rae's History of the Rebellion in 1715 ; any good History of the 
Rebellion in 1745 ; A Display of the Secession Act and Testimony, 
by Mr Gibb ; Hervey's Meditations ; Beveridge's Thoughts ,• and 
another copy of Watson's Body of Divinity, This last heavy per- 
formance is so much admired by many of our members, that they 
will not be content with one copy. 

I wrote to Mr A. Masterton three or four months ago, to pay 
some money he owed me into your hands, and lately I wrote to 
you to the same purpose, but I have heard from neither one nor 
other of you. 

In addition to the books I commissioned in my last, I want very 

much An Index to the Excise Laws, or, an Abridgement of all the 

Statutes now in force Relative to the Excise : by Jellinger Symons. 

I want three copies of this book : if it is now to be had, cheap or 

I dear, get it for me. An honest country neighbour of mine wants, 

too, a Family Bible — the larger the better, but second-handed, 

J for he does not choose to give above ten shillings for the book. 1 

| want likewise for myself, as you can pick them up, second-handed 

I or cheap copies of Otway's dramatic works, Ben Jonson's, Dry den's, 

I Congreve's, "Wycherley's, Vanbrugh's, Cibber's, or any dramatic 

| works of the more modern Macklin, Garrick, Foote, Colman, or 

| Sheridan. A good copy, too, of Moliere in French I much want 

! Any other good dramatic authors in that language I want also ; 

but comic authors chiefly, though I should wish to have Racin*, 

Corneille, and Voltaire too. I am in no hurry for all or any *,. 

these, but if you accidentally meet with them very cheap, get them 

for me. 

And now, to quit the dry walk of business, how do you do, my 
doar friend ? — and how is Mrs Hill ? I trust, if now and then not 
so elegantly handsome, at least as amiable, and sings as divinely as 
ever. My good wife, too, has a charming " wood-note wild ;" now, 
could we four get anyway snugly together in a corner of the New 
Jerusalem (remember I bespeak your company there), you and I, 

though we are no singers, &c. ■ 

I am out of all patience with this vile world for one thing, 
Mankind are by nature benevolent creatures, except in a few 
scoundrelly instances. I do not think that avarice of the good 
things we chance to have is born with us ; but we are placed here 
amid so much nakedness, and hunger, and poverty, and want, that 
we are under a cursed necessity of studying selfishness in order that 
we may exist ! Still, there are in every age a few souls that all the 
wants and woes of life cannot debase to selfishness, or even to the 
necessary alloy of caution and prudence. If ever I am in danger 
of vanity, it is when I contemplate myself on this side of my dis- 



7 UKNS' LETTERS. 523 



position and character. I am no saint. I have a whole host of 
follies and sins to answer for ; but if I could, and I believe I do it 
as far as I can, I would wipe away all tears from all eyes. Even 
the knaves who have injured me, I would oblige them ; though, 
to tell the truth, it would be more out of vengeance, to show them 
that I was independent of and above them, than out of the over- 
flowings of my benevolence. Adieu ! R. B. 



CCXVI. 

TO MRS DUXLOP. 

Ellisland, 10th April 1790. 
I have just now, my ever-honoured friend, enjoyed a very high 
luxury, in reading a paper of the Lounger. You know my national 
prejudices. I had often read and admired the Spectator, Adven- 
turer, Rambler, and World ; but still with a certain regret that 
they were so thoroughly and entirely English. Alas ! have I 
often said to myself, what are all the boasted advantages which 
my country reaps from the Union that can counterbalance the 
annihilation of her independence, and even her very name ! I 
often repeat that couplet of my favourite poet, Goldsmith :— 

" States of native liberty possest, 
Though very poor may yet be very blest." 

Nothing can reconcile me to the common terms English ambas^ 
sador, English court, &c. ; and I am out of all patience to see that 
equivocal character, Hastings, impeached by " the Commons of 
England." Tell me, my friend, is this. weak prejudice ? I believe 
in my conscience such ideas as " My country ; her independence : 
her honour ; the illustrious names that mark the history of my 
native land," &c. — I believe these, among your men of the world — 
men who, in fact, guide for the most part and govern our world — 
are looked on as so many modifications of wrong-headedness. 
They know the use of bawling out such terms, to rouse or lead 
the rabble ; but for their own private use, with almost all the 
able statesmen that ever existed or now exist, when they talk of 
right and wrong they only mean proper and improper ; and their 
measure of conduct is not what they ought, but what they dare. 
For the truth of this I shall not ransack the history of nations, 
but appeal to one of the ablest judges of men that ever lived — the 
celebrated Earl of Chesterfield. In fact, a man who could tho- 
roughly control his vices whenever they interfered with his inter- 
ests, and who could completely put on the appearance of every 
virtue as often as it suited his purposes, is, on the Stanhopian 
plan, the perfect man — a man to lead nations. But are great 



&24 BURNS LETTERS. 

abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished without a blemish 
the standard of human excellence ? This is certainly the stanch 
opinion of men of the world ; but I call on honour, virtue, and 
worth to give the Stygian doctrine a loud negative ! However, 
this must be allowed — that if you abstract from man the idea of 
an existence beyond the grave, then the true measure of human 
conduct is, proper and improper. Virtue and vice, as dispositions 
of the heart, are in that case of scarcely the same import and value 
to the world at large as harmony and discord in the modifications 
of sound ; and a delicate sense of honour, like a nice ear for music, 
though it may sometimes give the possessor an ecstasy unknown 
to the coarser organs of the herd, yet, considering the harsh grat- 
ings and inharmonic jars in this ill-tuned state of being, it is odds 
but the individual would be as happy, and certainly would be as 
much respected by the true judges of society, as it would then 
stand, without either a good ear or a good heart. 

You must know I have just met with the Mirror and Lounger 
for the first time, and I am quite in raptures with them ; I should 
be glad to have your opinion of some of the papers. The one I 
have just read, Lounger, No. 61, has cost me more honest tears 
than anything I have read of a long time. Mackenzie has been 
called the Addison of the Scots, and, in my opinion, Addison 
would not be hurt at the comparison. If he has not Addison's 
exquisite humour he as certainly outdoes him in the tender and 
the pathetic. His Man of Feeling — but I am not counsel-learned 
in the laws of criticism — I estimate as the first performance in its 
kind I ever saw. From what book, moral or even pious, will the 
susceptible young mind receive impressions more congenial to 
humanity and kindness, generosity and benevolence — in short, 
more of all that ennobles the soul to herself, or endears her to 
others — than from the simple, affecting tale of poor Harley ? 

Still, with all my admiration of Mackenzie's writings, I do not 
know if they are the fittest reading for a young man who is about 
to set out, as the phrase is, to make his way into life. Do not 
you think, madam, that among the few favoured of Heaven in 
the structure of their minds — for such there certainly are — there 
may be a purity, a tenderness, a dignity, an elegance of soul, 
which are of no use, nay, in some degree absolutely disqualifying, 
for the truly important business of making a man's way into life I 

If I am not much mistaken, my gallant young friend A is very 

much under these disqualifications ; and for the young females of 
a family I could mention, well may they excite parental solicitude, 
for I, a common acquaintance, or, as my vanity will have it, a 
humble friend, have often trembled for a turn of mind which may 
render them eminently happy or peculiarly miserable I 

I have been manufacturing some verses lately ; but as I have 
got the most hurried season of Excise business over, I hope to 



BURNS' letters. 525 



have more leisure to transcribe anything that may shew how 
much I have the honour to be, madam, yours, &c, R. B. 



CCXVII. 
TO DR MOORE. 

Dumfkies, Excise-Office, 1<Wi July 1790. 

Sir,— Coming into town this morning to attend my duty in this 
office, it being collection-day, I met with a gentleman who tells 
me he is on his way to London ; so I take the opportunity of writ- 
ing to you, as franking is at present under a temporary death. I 
shall have some snatches of leisure through the day amid our 
horrid business and bustle, and I shall improve them as well as I 
can ; but let my letter be as stupid as * * * *, as miscellane- 
ous as a newspaper, as short as a hungry grace-before-meat, or as 
long as a law-paper in the Douglas cause ; as ill-spelt as country 
John's billet-doux, or as unsightly a scrawl as Betty Byre- 
Mucker's answer to it; I hope, considering circumstances, you 
will forgive it ; and as it will put you to no expense of postage, I 
shall have the less reflection about it. 

I am sadly ungrateful in not returning my thanks for your 
most valuable present, Zeluco. In fact, you are in some degree 
blameable for my neglect. You were pleased to express a wish 
for my opinion of the work, which so flattered me, that nothing 
less would serve my overweening fancy than a formal criticism 
on the book. In fact, I have gravely planned a comparative view 
of you, Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett, in your different quali- 
ties and merits as novel-writers. This, I own, betrays my ridicu- 
lous vanity, and I may probably never bring the business to bear ; 
but I am fond of the spirit young Elihu shews in the book of Job — 
" And I said, I will also declare my opinion." I have quite dis- 
figured my copy of the book with my annotations. I never take 
it up without at the same time taking my pencil, and marking 
with asterisms, parentheses, &c, wherever I meet with an original 
thought, a nervous remark on life and manners, a remarkable, 
well-turned period, or a character sketched with uncommon pre- 
cision. 

Though I should hardly think of fairly writing out my " Com- 
parative View," I shall certainly trouble you with my remarks, 
such as they are. 

I have just received from my gentleman that horrid summons 
in the book of Revelation — " That time shall be no more !" 

The little collection of sonnets have some charming poetry in 
them. If indeed I am indebted to the fair author for the book,* 
and not, as I rather suspect, to a celebrated author of the other 

* This book was ths Sonnets of Charlotte Smith, 



526 BURNS' LETTERS. 



sex, I should certainly have written to the lady, with my grateful 
acknowledgments, and my own ideas of the comparative excellence 
of her pieces. I would do this last, not from any vanity of think- 
ing that my remarks could be of much consequence to Mrs Smith, 
but merely from my own feelings as an author, doing as I would 
be done by. R. B. 



CCXVIII. 

TO MR MURDOCH, TEACHER OF FRENCH, LONDON 

Ellislaxd, 16^ July 1790 
My dear Sir, — I received a letter from you a long time ago, 
but unfortunately, as it was in the time of my peregrinations and 
journeyings through Scotland, I mislaid or lost it, and by conse- 
quence your direction along with it. Luckily, my good star 
brought me acquainted with Mr Kennedy, who, I understand, is 
an acquaintance of yours ; and by his means and mediation I hope 
to replace that link which my unfortunate negligence had so 
unluckily broke in the chain of our correspondence. I was the 
more vexed at the vile accident, as my brother William, a journey- 
man saddler, has been for some time in London, and wished above 
all things for your direction, that he might have paid his respects 
to his father's friend. 

His last address he sent me was, " Wm. Burns, at Mr Barber's, 
saddler, No. 181 Strand." I writ him by Mr Kennedy, but 
neglected to ask him for your address ; so, if you find a spare 
half minute, please let my brother know by a card where and 
when he will find you, and the poor fellow will joyfully wait on 
you, as one of the few surviving friends of the man whose name, 
and christian name too, he has the honour to bear. 

The next letter I write you shall be a long one. I have much 
to tell you of "hairbreadth 'scapes in th' imminent deadly breach," 
with all the eventful history of a life, the early years of which 
owed so much to your kind tutorage ; but this at an hour of 
leisure. My kindest compliments to Mrs Murdoch and family. 
I am ever, my dear sir, your obliged friend, R. B. 



CCXIX. 

TO MR M'MURDO. 

Ellisland, 2c? Augmt 1790. 
Sir, — Now that you are over with the sirens of Flattery, the 
harpies of Corruption, and the furies of. Ambition — these infernal 
deities that on all sides, and in ail parties, preside over th* 



BURNS* LETTERS. 52? 



villanous business of politics — permit a rustic Muse of your ac» 
quaintance to do her best to sooth you with a song (He's gane, 
p. 156). 

You knew Henderson — I have not flattered his memory. I 
have the honour to be, sir, your obliged, humble servant, R. B. 



ccxx. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Sth August 1790. 

Dear Madam, — After a long day's toil, plague, and care, I sit 
down to write to you. Ask me not why I have delayed it so long ? 
It was owing to hurry, indolence, and fifty other things ; in short, 
to anything but forgetfulness of la jrtus aimable de son sexe. By 
the by, you are indebted your best courtesy to me for this last 
compliment, as I pay it from my sincere conviction of its truth 
— a quality rather rare in compliments of these grinning, bowing, 
scraping times. 

Well, I hope writing to you will ease a little my troubled soul. 
Sorely has it been bruised to-day ! A ci-devant friend of mine, 
and an intimate acquaintance of yours, has given my feelings a 
wound that I perceive will gangrene dangerously ere it cure. H 
cas wounded my pride ! R. B. 



CCXXI. 

TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 

- Ellislaxd, Sth August 1790. 

Forgive me, my once dear, and ever dear friend, my seeming 
negligence. You cannot sit down and fancy the busy life I lead. 

I laid down my goose-feather to beat my brains for an aj>t 
simile, and had some thoughts of a country grannum at a family 
christening ; a bride on the market-day before her marriage ; an 
orthodox clergyman at a Paisley sacrament ; or a tavern-keeper 
at an election dinner ; but the resemblance that hits my fancy 
best is, that blackguard miscreant, Satan, who, &c, &c, roams 
about like a roaring lion, seeking, searching whom he may devour. 
However, tossed about as I am, if I choose — and who would not 
choose ? — to bind down with the crampets of attention the brazen 
foundation of integrity, I may rear up the superstructure of in- 
dependence, and from its daring turrets bid defiance to the storms 
of fate And is not this a " consummation devoutly to be wished?' 

" Thy spirit, Independence, let nie share; 
Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye! 
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare, 
If or heed the storm that howls along the sky •* 



528 BURNS' LETTERS. 



Are not these noble verses ? They are the introduction oi 
Smollett's Ode to Independence : if you have not seen the poem, I 
will send it to you. How wretched is the man that hangs on by 
the favours of the great ! To shrink from every dignity of man, 
at the approach of a lordly piece of self-consequence, who, amid 
all his tinsel glitter and stately hauteur, is but a creature formed 
as thou art — and perhaps not so well formed as thou art — came 
into the world a pulling infant as thou didst, and must go out 
of it as all men must — a naked corse. R. B. 



CCXXIL 
TO COLLECTOR MITCHELL. 

Ellislaxd, October 1790. 

Sir,— I shall not fail to wait on Captain Riddel to-night. 1 
wish and pray that the goddess of justice herself would appeat 
to-morrow among our hon. gentlemen, merely to give them a 
word in their ear that mercy to the thief is injustice to the honest 
man. For my part, I have galloped over my ten parishes these 
four days, until this moment that I am just alighted, or rather 
that my poor jackass-skeleton of a horse has let me down; for 
the miserable creature has been on his knees half a score of times 
within the last twenty miles, telling me, in his own way — " Be- 
hold, am not I thy faithful jade of a horse, on which thou hast 
ridden these many years V s 

In short, sir, I have broke my horse's wind, and almost broke 
my own neck, besides some injuries in a part that shall be name- 
less, owing to a hard-hearted stone of a saddle. I find that 
every offender has so many great men to espouse his cause, that 
I shall not be surprised if I am not committed to the stronghold 
of the law to-morrow for insolence to the dear friends of the gen- 
tlemen of the country. I have the honour to be, sir, your obliged 
and obedient humble R. B. 



CCXXIII. 

TO CRAUFORD TAIT, ESQ., EDINBURGH. 

Ellisland, loth October 1790. 
Dear Sir, — Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance the 
bearer, Mr Wm. Duncan, a friend of mine, whom I have long 
known and long loved. His father, whose only son he is, has a 
decent little property in Ayrshire, and has bred the young man 
to the law, in which department he comes up an adventurer to 
your good town. I shall give you my friend's character in 
two words— As to his head, he has talents enough, and more than 



BURNS' LETTERS. 5*3 



•nough, for common life; as to his heart, when nature had 
kneaded the kindly clay that composed it, she said — " I can no 
more." 

You, my good sir, were born under kinder stars ; but your fra- 
ternal sympathy, I well know, can enter into the feelings of the 
young man who goes into life with the laudable ambition to do 
something, and to be something among his fellow-creatures, but 
whom the consciousness of friendless obscurity presses to the 
earth, and wounds to the soul ! 

Even the fairest of his virtues are against him. That inde- 
pendent spirit, and that ingenuous modesty — qualities inseparable 
from a noble mind — are, with the million, circumstances not a 
little disqualifying. What pleasure is in the power of the for- 
tunate and the happy, by their notice and patronage, to brighten 
the countenance and glad the heart of such depressed youth 1 1 
am not so angry with mankind for their deaf economy of the 
purse : the goods of this world cannot be divided without being 
lessened — but why be a niggard of that which bestows bliss on a 
fellow-creature, yet takes nothing from our own means of enjoy- 
ment? "We wrap ourselves up in the cloak of our own better 
fortune, and turn away our eyes, lest the wants and woes of 
our brother-mortals should disturb the selfish apathy of our 
souls ! 

I am the worst hand in the world at asking a favour. That 
indirect address, that insinuating implication, which, without any 
positive request, plainly expresses your wish, is a talent not to be 
acquired at a plough-tail. Tell me, then — for you can — in what 
periphrasis of language, in what circumvolution of phrase, I shall 
envelope, yet not conceal, this plain story ? — " My dear Mr Tait, 
my friend Mr Duncan, whom I have the pleasure of introducing 
to you, is a young lad of your own profession, and a gentleman 
of much modesty and great worth. Perhaps it may be in your 
power to assist him in the, to him, important consideration of 
getting a place ; but at all events, your notice and acquaintance 
will be a very great acquisition to him, and I dare pledge myself 
that he will never disgrace your favour," 

You may possibly be surprised, sir, at such a letter from me : 
'tis, I own, in the usual way of calculating these matters, more 
than our acquaintance entitles me to ; but my answer is short. 
Of all the men at your time of life whom I knew in Edinburgh, 
you are the most accessible on the side on which I have assailed 
you. You are very much altered, indeed, from what you were 
when I knew you, if generosity point the path you will not tread, 
or humanity call to you in vain. 

As to myself— a being to whose interests I believe you are still 
a well-wisher — 1 am here, breathing at all times, thinking some- 
times, and rhyming now and then. Every situation has its share 



530 BURNS' LETTERS. 



of the cares and pains of life, and my situation, I am persuaded, 
has a full ordinary allowance of its pleasures and enjoyments. 

My best compliments to your father and Miss Tait. If you 
have an opportunity, please remember me in the solemn-league- 
and-covenant of friendship to Mrs Lewis Hay.* I am a wretch 
for not writing her ; but 1 am so hackneyed with self-accusation 
in that way, that my conscience lies in my bosom with scarce the 
sensibility of an oyster in its shell. "Where is Lady M'Kenzie ? 
Wherever she is, God bless her ! I likewise beg leave to trouble 
you with compliments to Mr Wm. Hamilton, Mrs Hamilton, and 
family, and Mrs Chalmers, when you are in that country. Should 
you meet with Miss Nimmo, please remember me kindly to her. 

R. B. 



CCXXIV. 
TO FRANCIS GROSE, ESQ. 

Among the many witch-stories I have heard relating to Alio- 
way Kirk, I distinctly remember only two or three. 

Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls of wind and bitter 
blasts of hail, — in short, on such a night as the devil would choose 
to take the air in, — a farmer, or farmer's servant, was plodding and 
plashing homeward with his plough-irons on his shoulder, having 
been getting some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His 
way lay by the Kirk of Ailoway ; and being rather on the anxious 
look-out in approaching a place so well known to be a favourite 
haunt of the devil, and the devil's friend's and emissaries, he was 
struck aghast by discovering through the horrors of the storm and 
stormy night, a light, which, on his nearer approach, plainly showed 
itself to proceed from the haunted edifice. Whether he had been 
fortified from above on his devout supplication, as is customary 
with people when they suspect the immediate presence of Satan, 
or whether, according to another custom, he had got courageously 
. drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to determine ; but so it was, 
that he ventured to go up to, nay, into the very kirk. As luck 
would have it, his temerity came of unpunished. 

The members of the infernal junto were all out on some mid- 
night business (ft other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle 
or caldron, depending from the roof, over the fire, simmering some 
heads of unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c, 
for the business of the night. It was in for a penny, in for a 
pound, with the honest ploughman : so without ceremony he un- 
hooked the caldron from off the fire, and pouring out the horrible 
ingredients, inverted it on his head, and carried it fairly home, 

* Formerly Miss Margaret Chalmers. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 581 



where it remained long in the family, a living evidence of the 
truth of the story. 

Another story, which I can prove to be equally authentic, was 
as follows : — 

On a market-day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carriek, 
and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Alloway 
Kirkyard, in order to cross the river Doon at the old Bridge, 
which is about two or three hundred yards farther on than the 
said gate, had been detained by his business, till by the time he 
reached Alloway it was the wizard hour, between night and 
morning. 

Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from the kirk, 
yet as it is a well-known fact, that to turn back on these occasions 
is running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently ad- 
vanced on his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirk- 
yard, he was surprised and entertained, through the ribs and 
arches of an old Gothic window, which still faces the highway, to 
see a dance of witches merrily footing it round their old sooty 
blackguard master, who was keeping them all alive with the 
power of his bagpipe. The farmer, stopping his horse to observe 
them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many old women 
of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the gentleman was 
dressed, tradition does not say, but that the ladies were all in their 
smocks : and one of them happening, unluckily, to have a smock 
which was considerably too short to answer all the purpose of that 
piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled, that he involuntarily 
burst out/with a loud laugh, " Weel luppen, Maggy wi' the short 
sark !" and recollecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to the 
top of his speed. I need not mention the universally-known fact, 
that no diabolical power can pursue you beyond the middle of a 
running stream. Lucky it was for the poor farmer that the river 
Doon was so near, for notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which 
was a good one, against he reached the middle of the arch of the 
bridge, and consequently the middle of the stream, the pursuing, 
vengeful hags were so close at his heels, that one of them actually 
sprang to seize him : but it was too late ; nothing was on her side 
of the stream but the horse's tail, which immediately gave way, at 
her infernal grip, as if blasted by a strok* of lightning ; but the 
farmer was beyond her reach. However, the unsightly, tail-less, 
condition of the vigorous steed was, to the last hour of the noble 
creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick farmers not to 
stay too late in Ayr markets. 

The last relation I shall give, though equally true, is not so well 
identified as the two former with regard to the scene ; but as the 
best authorities give it for Alloway, I shall relate it. 

On a summer's evening, about the time Nature puts on her 
sables to mourn the expiry of the cheerful day, a shepherd-bcy, 



182 BURNS' LETTERS. 



belonging to a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of Alloway 
Kirk, had just folded his charge, and was returning home. As 
he passed the kirk, in the adjoining field, he fell in with a crew 
of men and women, who were busy pulling stems of the plant rag- 
wort. He observed that as each person pulled a ragwort, he or 
she got astride of it, and called out, " Up horsie !" on which the 
ragwort flew off, like Pegasus, through the air with its rider. 
The foolish boy likewise pulled his ragwort, and cried with the 
rest, " Up horsie !" and, strange to tell, away he flew with the 
company. The first stage at which the cavalcade stopt was a 
merchant's wine-cellar in Bordeaux, where, without saying by 
your leave, they quaffed away at the best the cellar could afford, 
until the morning — foe to the imps and works of darkness — 
threatened to throw light on the matter, and frightened them 
from their carousals. 

The poor shepherd lad, being equally a stranger to the scene 
and the liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk ; and when the 
rest took horse, he fell asleep, and was found so next day by 
some of the people belonging to the merchant. Somebody that 
understood Scotch, asking him what he was, he said such-a-one's 
herd in Alloway ; and by some means or other getting home 
again, he lived long to tell the world the wondrous tale. 

R. B. 



CCXXV. 
TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, November 1790. 

" As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a fai 
country." 

Fate has long owed me a letter of good news from you, in return 
for the many tidings of sorrow which I have received. In this 
instance I most cordially obey the apostle : " Rejoice with them 
that do rejoice' — for me to sing for joy is no new thing ; but to 
preach for joy, as I have done in the commencement of this epistle, 
is a pitch of extravagant rapture to which I never rose before. 

I read your letter — ]• literally jumped for joy. How could such 
a mercurial creature as a poet lumpishly keep his seat on the re- 
ceipt of the best news from his best friend ? I seized my gilt- 
headed Wangee rod, an instrument indispensably necessary, in my 
left hand, in the moment of inspiration and rapture ; and stride, 
stride — quick and quicker — out skipt I among the broomy banks 
of Nith to muse over my joy by retail. To keep within the bounds 
of prose was impossible. Mrs Little's is a more elegant, but not 
a more sincere compliment to the sweet little fellow, than I, ex* 
tempore almost, poured out to him in the following verses (p. 163), 



BURNS* LETTERS. 583 



I am much flattered by your approbation of my Tarn o' Shanter, 
which you express in your former letter, though, by the by, you 
load me in that said letter with accusations heavy and many, to 
all which I plead, not guilty / Your book i3, 1 hear, on the road 
to reach me. As to printing of poetry, when you prepare it for the 
press, you have only to spell it right, and place the capital letters 
properly — as to the punctuation, the printers do that themselves. 

I have a copy of Tarn o' Shanter ready to send you by the first 
opportunity — it is too heavy to send by post. 

I heard of Mr Corbet lately. He, in consequence of your recom- 
mendation, is most zealous to serve me. Please favour me soon 
with an account of your good folks ; if Mrs H. is recovering, and 
the young gentleman doing well. R. B. 



CCXXVI. ' 
TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W.S. 

Ellisland, nth January 1791. 

I am not gone to Elysium, most noble colonel, but am still here 
in this sublunary world, serving my God by propagating his image, 
and honouring my king by begetting him loyal subjects. 

Many happy returns of the season await my friend. May the 
thorns of care never beset his path 1 May peace be an inmate of 
his bosom, and rapture a frequent visitor of his soul ! May the 
bloodhounds of misfortune never track his steps, nor the screech- 
owl of sorrow alarm his dwelling ! May enjoyment tell thy hours, 
and pleasure number thy days, thou friend of the bard ! " Blessed 
be he that blesseth thee, and cursed be he that curseth thee ! ! !" 

As a further proof that I am still in the land of existence, I send 
you a poem, the latest I have composed. I have a particular 
reason for wishing you only to show it to select friends, should 
you think it worthy a friend's perusal ; but if, at your first leisure 
hour, you will favour me with your opinion of, and strictures on, 
the performance, it will be an additional obligation on, dear sir, 
your deeply-indebted humble servant, R. B. 



CCXXVII. 

TO MR PETER HILL. 

Ellisland, Ylth January 1791. 

Take these two guineas, and place them over against that ac- 

tount of yours, which has gagged my mouth these five or six 

months ! I can as little write good things as apologies to the man 

I owe money to. Oh the supreme curse of making three guinea* 



531 r TT pys' LETTERS. 



do the business of five ! Not all the labours of Hercules ; not all 
the Hebrews' three centuries of Egyptian bondage, were such an 
insuperable business, such a desperate task ! ! Poverty ! thou half- 
sister of death, thou cousin-gerinan of destruction ! — where shall I 
find force of execration equal to the amplitude of thy demerits ? 
Oppressed by thee, the venerable ancient, grown hoary in the 
practice of every virtue, laden with years and wretchedness, im- 
plores a little, little aid to support his existence, from a stony- 
hearted son of Mammon, whose sun of prosperity never knew a 
cloud, and is by him denied and insulted. Oppressed by thee, the 
man of sentiment, whose heart glows with independence, and 
melts with sensibility, inly pines under the neglect, or writhes, in 
bitterness of soul, under the contumely of arrogant, unfeeling 
wealth. Oppressed by thee, the son of genius, whose ill-starred 
ambition plants him at the tables of the fashionable and polite, 
must see, in suffering silence, his remark neglected, and his person 
despised, while shallow greatness, in his idiot attempts at wit, 
shall meet with countenance and applause, Nor is it only the 
family of worth that have reason to complain of thee — the children 
of folly and vice, though in common with thee the offspring of 
evil, smart equally under thy rod. Owing to thee, the man of 
unfortunate disposition and neglected education is condemned as 
a fool for his dissipation, despised and shunned as a needy wretch 
when his follies as usual bring him to want ; and when his un 
principled necessities drive him to dishonest practices, he is ab 
horred as a miscreant, and perishes by the justice of his country 
But far otherwise is the. lot of the man of family and fortune 
His early follies and extravagance are spirit and fire ;- his conse- 
quent wants are the embarrassments of an honest fellow; and when, 
to remedy the matter, he has gained a legal commission to plunder 
distant provinces, or massacre peaceful nations, he returns, perhaps, 
laden with the spoils of rapine and murder ; lives wicked and re- 
spected, and dies a scoundrel and a lord. 

Well, divines may say of it what they please, but execration is 
to the mind what phlebotomy is to the body — the vital sluices of 
both are wonderfully relieved by their respective evacuations. 

R.B. 



CCXXVIII. 
TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 

Ellislaxd, 23d? January 1791. 

Many happy returns of the season to you, my dear friend ! As 
many of the good things of this life as is consistent with the usual 
mixture of good and evil in the cup of being ! 

I have just finished a poem — Tarn o' Shanter— which you will 
receive enclosed. It is my first essay in the way of tales. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 685 

I have these several months been hammering at an elegy on the 
amiable and accomplished Miss Burnet. I have got, and can get, 
no farther than the following fragment (p. 164), on which please 
give me your strictures. In all kinds of poetic composition I set 
great store by your opinion ; but in sentimental verses, in the 
poetry of the heart, no Roman Catholic ever set more value on 
the infallibility of the Holy Father than I do on yours. 

I mean the introductory couplets as text verses. 

Let me hear from you soon. Adieu ! R. B. 



CCXXIX. 
TO THE REV. ARCHIBALD ALISON. 

Ellislaxd, Uth Feb 1791 
Sir, — You must by this time have set me down as one of the 
most ungrateful of men. You did me the honour to present me 
with a book which does honour to science and the intellectual 
powers of man, and I have not even so much as acknowledged the 
receipt of it The fact is, you yourself are to blame for it. Flat- 
tered as I was by your telling me that you wished to have my 
opinion of the work, the old spiritual enemy of mankind, who 
knows well that vanity is one of the sins that most easily beset me, 
put it into my head to ponder over the performance with the look- 
out of a critic, and to draw up forsooth a deep-learned digest of 
strictures on a composition, of which, in fact, until I read the book, 
I did not even know the first principles. I own, sir, that at first 
glance several of your propositions startled me as paradoxical. 
That the martial clangour of a trumpet had something in it vastly 
more grand, heroic, and sublime, than the twingle-twangle of a 
Jew's harp — that the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when the 
half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of the dawn, was in- 
finitely more beautiful and elegant than the upright stub of a 
burdock — and that from something innate and independent of all 
associations of ideas— these I had set down as irrefragable, orthodox 
truths, until perusing your book shook my faith. In short, sir, 
except Euclid's Elements of Geometry, which I made a shift to 
unravel by my father's fireside in the winter evenings of the first 
season I held the plough, I never read a book which gave me such 
a quantum of information, and added so much to my stock of ideas, 
as your Essays on the Principles of Taste. One thing, sir, you must 
forgive my mentioning as an uncommon merit in the work — I 
mean the language. To clothe abstract philosophy in elegance 
of style sounds something like a contradiction in terms ; bu$ you 
have convinced me that they are quite compatible. 

I enclose you some poetic bagatelles of my late composition. 
The one in print is my first essay in the way of telling a tale. I 
am, sir, &c. R. B, 



186 BURNS' LETTERS. 



CCLXXXIX. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

June 1793. 

When I tell you, my dear sir, that a friend of mine, in whom 1 
am much interested, has fallen a sacrifice to these accursed times, 
you will easily allow that it might unhinge me for doing any good 
among ballads. My own loss, as to pecuniary matters, is trifling ; 
but the total ruin of a much-loved friend is a loss indeed. Pardon 
my seeming inattention to your last commands. 

I cannot alter the disputed lines in The Mitt, Mitt 0/ What 
you think a defect, I esteem as a positive beauty ; so you see how 
doctors differ. I shall now, with as much alacrity as I can muster, 
go on with your commands. 

You know Fraser, the hautboy-player in Edinburgh— he is here 
instructing a band of music for a fencible corps quartered in this 
county. Among many of his airs that please me, there is one, well 
known as a reel, by the name of The Quaker's Wife ; and which I 
remember, a grand-aunt of mine used to sing by the name of 
Liggeram Cosh, my Bonnie Wee Lass. Mr Fraser plays it slow, 
and with an expression that quite charms me. I became such an 
enthusiast about it, that I made a song for it, which I here sub- 
join, and enclose Fraser 's set of the tune. If they hit your fancy, 
they are at your service ; if not, return me the tune 5 and I will 
put it in Johnson's Museum. I think the song is not in my worst 
manner {Blythe, &c, p. 267). I should wish to hear how this 
pleases you. R. B. 



CCXC. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

25th June 1793. 
Have you ever, my dear sir, felt your bosom ready to burst 
with indignation, on reading of those mighty villains who divide 
kingdom against kingdom, desolate provinces, and lay nations 
waste, out of the wantonness of ambition, or often from still more 
ignoble passions ? In a mood of this kind to-day I recollected 
the air of Logan Water, and it occurred to me that its querulous 
melody probably had its origin from the plaintive indignation of 
some swelling, suffering heart, fired at the tyrannic strides of 
some public destroyer, and overwhelmed with private distress, 
the consequence of a country's ruin. If I have done anything at 
all like justice to my feelings, the following song (p. 268), com- 
posed in three-quarters of an hour's meditation in my elbow-chair, 
ought to have some merit. R. B. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 537 



they have passed that bourne where all other kindness ceases to 
be of avail. Whether, after all, either the one or the other be of 
any real service to the dead, is, I fear, very problematical, but I 
am sure they are highly gratifying to the living : and as a very 
orthodox text, I forget where, in Scripture says, — " whatsoever is . 
not of faith is sin ;" so say I, whatsoever is not detrimental to 
society, and is of positive enjoyment, is of God, the giver of all 
good things, and ought to be received and enjoyed by His creatures 
with thankful delight. As almost all my religious tenets originate 
from my heart, I am wonderfully pleased with the idea that I 
can still keep up a tender intercourse with the dearly-beloved 
friend, or still more dearly-beloved sweetheart, who is gone to the 
world of spirits. 

The ballad on Queen Mary was begun while I was busy with 
Percy's Reliques of English Poetry. By the way, how much is 
every honest heart, which has a tincture of Caledonian prejudice, 
obliged to you for your glorious story of Buchanan and Targe ! 
'Twas an unequivocal proof of your loyal gallantry of soul giving 
Targe the victory. I should have been mortified to the ground if 
you had not. 

I have just read over once more of many times your Zeluco. I 
marked with my pencil as I went along every passage that pleased 
me particularly above the rest, and one or two which, with humble 
deference, I am disposed to think unequal to the merits of the 
book. I have sometimes thought to transcribe these marked 
passages, or at least so much of them as to point where they are, 
and send them to you. Original strokes that strongly depict the 
human heart, is your and Fielding's province beyond any other 
novelist I have ever perused. Richardson, indeed, might perhaps 
be excepted ; but unhappily his dramatis personal are beings of 
another world ; and, however they may captivate the inexperi- 
enced, romantic fancy of a boy or a girl, they will ever, in pro- 
portion as we have made human nature our study, dissatisfy our 
riper years. 

As to my private concerns — I am going on, a mighty tax- 
gatherer, and have lately had the interest to get myself ranked 
on the list of Excise as a supervisor. I am not yet employed 
as such, but in a few years I shall fall into the file of super* 
visorship by seniority. I have had an immense loss in the death 
of the Earl of Glencairn, the patron from whom all my fame and 
fortune took its rise. Independent of my grateful attachment 
to him, which was indeed so strong that it pervaded my very 
soul, and was entwined with the thread of my existence ; so soon 
' as the prince's friends had got in, — and every dog you know has his 
day, — my getting forward in the Excise would have been an easier 
business than otherwise it will be. Though this was a consum- 
mation devoutly to be wished, yet I can live and rhyme as I am ; 



B39 BURNS LETTERS. 



and as to my boys, poor little fellows ! if I cannot place them on 
as high an elevation in life as I could wish, I shall, if I am I 
favoured so much by the Disposer of events as to see that period, ! 
fix them on as broad and independent a basis as possible, j 
Among the many wise adages which have been treasured up by 
our Scottish ancestors, this is one of the best — Better be the head o 1 
the commonalty than the tail o* the gentry. 

But I am got on a subject, which, however interesting to me. is 
of no manner of consequence to you : so I shall give you a short 
poem on the other page, and close this with assuring you how 
sincerely I have the honour to be, yours, &c. R. B. 



CCXXXTI. 

TO THE REV. G. BAIRD. 

Ellisland, Febrvary 1791. 
Reverend Sir, — Why did you, my dear sir, write to me in 
such a hesitating style on the business of poor Bruce ? Don't I 
know, and have I not felt, the many ills, the peculiar ills, that 
poetic flesh is heir to ? You shall have your choice of all the un- 
published poems I have ; and had your letter had my direction so 
as to "have reached me sooner, it only came to my hand this 
moment, I should have directly put you out of suspense on the 
subject. I only ask that some prefatory advertisement in. the 
book, as well as the subscription-bills, may bear that the publica- 
tion is solely for the benefit of Bruce's mother. I would not put 
it in the power of ignorance to surmise, or malice to insinuate, 
that I clubbed a share in the work from mercenary motives. 
Nor need you give me credit for any remarkable generosity in 
my part of the business. I have such a host of peccadilloes, 
failings, follies, and backslidings — anybody but myself might 
perhaps give some of them a worse appellation — that by way of 
some balance, however trifling, in the account, I am fain to do 
any good that occurs in my very limited power to a fellow-creature, 
just for the selfish purpose of clearing a little the vista of retro- 
spection. R. B. 



CCXXXIII. 

TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 

Ellisland, 12th March 1791. 

If the foregoing piece be worth your strictures, let me have 

them. For my own part, a thing that I have just composed 

always appears through a double portion of that partial medium 

in which an author will ever view his own works. I believe, io 



BURNS LETTERS. 



general, novelty has something in it that inebriates the fancy, and 
not unfrequently dissipates and fumes away like other intoxica« 
tion, and leaves the poor patient, as usual, with an aching heart. 
A striking instance of this might be adduced in the revolution of 
many a hymeneal honeymoon. But lest I sink into stupid prose, 
and so sacrilegiously intrude on the office of my parish priest, I 
shall fill up the page in my own way, and give you another song 
of my late composition, which will appear perhaps in Johnson's 
work,' as well as the former. 

You must know a beautiful Jacobite air — " There'll never he 
peace till Jamie comes hame'- (p. 244). When political combus- 
tion ceases to be the object of princes and patriots, it then, you 
know, becomes the lawful prey of historians and poets. 

If you like the air, and if the stanzas hit your fancy, you can 
not imagine, my dear friend, how much you would oblige me, if s 
by the charms of your delightful voice, you would give my honest 
effusion to " the memory of joys that are past" to the few friends 
whom you indulge in that pleasure. But I have scribbled on till 
I hear the clock has intimated the near approach of 

M That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane." 

So, good-night to you ! Sound be your sleep, and delectable your 
dreams ! Apropos, how do you like this thought in a ballad I 
have just now on the tapis ? 

" I look to the west when I gae to rest, 

That happy my dreams and my slumbers may bej 
Far, far in the west is he I loe best, 
The lad that is dear to my baby and me ! " 

Good-night once more, and God bless you ! R. B. 



CCXXXIV. 
TO MR ALEXANDER PALZELL, 

FACTOR, FINDLASTON. 

Ellisla^, 19lh March 1791. 

My dear Sir, — I have taken the liberty to frauk this letter to 
you, as it encloses an idle poem of mine, which I send you ; and 
you may perhaps pay dear enough for it if you read it through. 
Not that this is my own opinion ; but the author, by the time he 
has composed and corrected his work, has quite pored away all his 
powers of critical discrimination. 

I can easily guess, from my own heart, what you have felt on a 
late most melancholy event. God knows what I have suffered at 
the loss of my best friend, my first and dearest patron and bene- 
factor — the man to whom I owe all that I am and have ! I am 
gone into mourning for him, and with more sincerity of grief 
than I fear some will, who, by nature's ties, ought to feel on the 
occasion. 



640 BURNS' LETTERS. 



I will be exceedingly obliged to you, indeed, to let me know the 
news of the noble family, how the poor mother and the two sis- 
ters support their loss. I had a packet of poetic bagatelles ready 
to sen<J to Lady Betty when I saw the fatal tidings in the news- 
paper. I see; by the same channel, that the honoured remains 
of my noble patron are designed to be brought to the family 
burial-place. Dare I trouble you to let me know privately before 
the day of interment, that I may cross the country, and steal 
among the crowd, to pay a tear to the last sight of my ever-revered 
benefactor ? It will oblige me beyond expression. R. B. 



CCXXXV. 
TO LADY E. CUNNINGHAM. 

My Lady, — I would, as usual, have availed myself of the pri- 
vilege your goodness has allowed me, of sending you anything I 
compose in my poetical way ; but as I had resolved, so soon as the 
shock of my irreparable loss would allow me, to pay a tribute to my 
late benefactor, I determined to make that the first piece I should 
do myself the honour of sending you. Had the wing of my fancy 
been equal to the ardour of my heart, the enclosed (p. 166), had 
been much more worthy your perusal : as it is, I beg leave to lay 
it at your ladyship's feet. As all the world knows my obligations 
to the late Earl of Glencairn, I would wish to shew, as openly, 
that my heart glows, and shall ever glow, with the most grateful 
sense and remembrance of his lordship's goodness. The sables I 
did myself the honour to wear to his lordship's memory were not 
the (< mockery of wo." Nor shall my gratitude perish with me ! 
If among my children I shall have a son that has a heart, he shall 
hand it down to his child as a family honour and a family debt, 
that my dearest existence I owe to the noble house of Glencairn ! 

I was about to say, my lady, that if you think the poem may 
venture to see the light, I would, in some way or other, give it to 
the world. R. B. 



CCXXXVI. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 7th April 1791. 
When I tell you, madam, that by a fall, not from my horse, 
but with my horse, I have been a cripple some time, and that this 
is the first day my arm and hand have been able to serve me in 
writing, you will allow that it is too good an apology for my seem- 
ingly ungrateful silence. I am now getting better, and am able 



BURNS* LETTERS. 541 



to rhyme a little, which implies some tolerable ease, as I cannot 
think that the most poetic genius is able to compose on the rack. 

I do not remember if ever I mentioned to you my having an 
idea of composing an elegy on the late Miss Burnet of Monboddo. 
I had the honour of being pretty well acquainted with her, and 
have seldom felt so much at the loss of an acquaintance, as when 
I heard that so .amiable and accomplished a piece of God's work 
was no more. I have, as yet, gone no further than the following 
fragment, of which please let me have your opinion. You know 
that elegy is a subject so much exhausted, that any new idea on the 
business is not to be expected : 'tis well if we can place an old idea 
in a new light. How far I have succeeded as to this last, you will 
judge from what follows : * * * 

I have proceeded no farther. 

Your kind letter, with your kind remembrance of your godson, 
came safe. This last, madam, is scarcely what my pride can bear. 
As to the little fellow,* he is, partiality apart, the finest boy I 
have for a long time seen. He is now seventeen months old, has 
the small-pox and measles over, has cut several teeth, and never 
had a grain of doctors' drugs in his bowels. 

I am truly happy to hear that the " little floweret" is bloom- 
ing so fresh and fair, and that the " mother plant" is rather re- 
covering her drooping head. I have written thus far with a good 
deal of difficulty. When I get a little abler, you shall hear 
further from, madam, yours, R. B. 



CCXXXVII. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 11th April 1791. 
I am once more able, my honoured friend, to return you, with 
my own hand, thanks for the many instances of your friendship, 
and particularly for your kind anxiety in this last disaster that 
my evil genius had in store for me. However life is chequered — ■ 
joy and sorrow — for on Saturday morning last, Mrs Burns made 
me a present of a fine boy ; rather stouter, but not so handsome 
as your godson was at his time of life. Indeed, I look on your 
little namesake to be my chef d'eeuvre in that species of manufac- 
ture, as I look on Tarn o' Shanter to be my standard performance 
in the poetical line. 'Tis true, both the one and the other dis- 
cover a spice of roguish waggery that might perhaps be as well 
spared ; but then, they also shew, in my opinion, a force of genius, 
and a finishing polish, that I despair of ever excelling. Mrs 
Burns is getting stout again, and laid as lustily about her to-day 

* Francis Wallace Burns, the poet's second son. 



512 BURKS' LETTERS. 



at breakfast as a reaper from the corn-ridge. That is the peculiar 
privilege and blessing of our hale, sprightly damsels, that are bred 
among the hay and heather. We cannot hope for that highly- 
polished mind, that charming delicacy of soul, which is found 
among the female world in the more elevated stations of life, and 
which is certainly by far the most bewitching charm in the fam- 
ous cestus of Yenus. It is indeed such an inestimable treasure, 
that where it can be had in its native heavenly purity, unstained 
by some one or other of the many shades of affectation, and un- 
alloyed by some one or other of the many species of caprice, I de- 
clare I should think it cheaply purchased at the expense of every 
other earthly good ! But as this angelic creature is, I am afraid, 
extremely rare in any station and rank of life, and totally denied 
to such an humble one as mine, we meaner mortals, must put up 
with the next rank of female excellence, — as fine a figure and 
face we can produce as any rank of life whatever ; rustic, native 
grace ; unaffected modesty and unsullied purity ; nature's mother- 
wit, and the rudiments of taste ; a simplicity of soul, unsuspicious 
of, because unacquainted with, the crooked ways of a selfish, in- 
terested, disingenuous world ; and the dearest charm of all the 
rest — a yielding sweetness of disposition* and a generous warmth 
of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently glowing with 
a more than equal return : these, with a healthy frame, a sound, 
vigorous constitution, which your higher ranks can scarcely ever 
hope to enjoy, are the charms of lovely women in my humble 
walk of life. 

Thi3 is the greatest effort my broken arm has yet made. Do 
let me hear, by first post, how cher petit Monsieur* comes on with 
his small-pox. May Almighty goodness preserve and restore 
him I R. B. 



CCXXXVIII. 

TO A. F. TYTLER, ESQ. 

Ellisland, April 1791. 
Sir, — Nothing less than the unfortunate accident I have met 
with could have prevented my grateful acknowledgments for your 
letter. His own favourite poem, and that an essay in the walk 
of the Muses entirely new to him, where consequently his hopes 
and fears were on the most anxious alarm for his success in the 
attempt — to have that poem so much applauded by one of the 
first judges, was the most delicious vibration that ever thrilled 
along the heart-strings of a poor poet. However, Providence, to 
keep up the proper proportion of evil with the good, which it seems 

* The grandchild of Mrs Dunlop. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 54! 

is necessary in this sublunary state, thought proper to check my 
exultation by a very serious misfortune. A day or two after I 
received your letter, my horse came down with me and broke my 
right arm. As this is the first service my arm has done me since 
its disaster, I find myself unable to do more than just, in general 
terms, thank you for this additional instance of your patronage 
and friendship. As to the faults you detected in the piece, they 
are truly there. One of them, the hit at the lawyer and priest, I 
shall cut out : as to the falling off in the catastrophe, for the 
reason you justly adduce, it cannot easily be remedied. Your 
approbation, sir, has given me such additional spiiits to persevere 
in this species of poetic composition, that I am already revolving 
two or three stories in my fancy. If I can bring these floating 
ideas to bear any kind of embodied form, it will give me an 
additional opportunity of assuring you how much I have the 
honour to be, &c. R. B. 



CCXXXIX. 

TO LADY AY. M. CONSTABLE. 

Ellislaxd, llth April 1791. 
My Lady, — Nothing less than the unlucky accident of having 
lately broken my right arm could have prevented me, the moment 
I received your ladyship's elegant present by Mrs Miller, from 
returning you my warmest and most grateful acknowledgments. 
I assure your ladyship I shall set it apart — the symbols of religion 
shall only be more sacred. In the moment of poetic composition 
the box shall be my inspiring genius. "When I would breathe the 
comprehensive wish of benevolence for the happiness of others, I 
shall recollect your ladyship ; when I would interest my fancy in 
the distresses incident to humanity, I shall remember the unfor- 
tunate Mary. R. B. 



CCXL. 
TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 

11th June 1791. 

Let me interest you, my dear Cunningham, in behalf of the 
gentleman who waits on you with this. He is a Mr Clarke of 
Moffat, principal schoolmaster there, and is at present suffering 
severely under the persecution of one or two powerful individuals 
of his employers. He is accused of harshness to boys that were 
placed under his care. God help the teacher, if a man of sensi* 
bllity and genius— and such is my friend Clarke — when a booby 
father presents him with his booby son, and insists on lighting up 



54 4 BURKS LETTERS. 



the rays of science in a fellow's head whose skull is impervious 
and inaccessible by any other way than a positive fracture with 
a cudgel — a fellow whom, in fact, it savours of impiety to attempt 
making a scholar of, as he has been marked a blockhead in the 
book of fate at the Almighty fiat of his Creator. 

The patrons of Moffat School are the ministers, magistrates,, and 
town-council of Edinburgh ; and as the business comes now before 
them, let me beg my dearest friend to do everything in his power 
to serve the interests of a man of genius and worth, and a man 
whom I particularly respect and esteem. You know some good 
fellows among the magistracy and council ; but particularly you 
have much to say with a reverend gentleman to whom you have 
the honour of being very nearly related, and whom this country 
and age have had the h:nour to produce. I need not name the 
historian of Charles V. I tell him, through the medium of his 
nephew's influence, that Mr Clarke is a gentleman who will not 
disgrace even his patronage; I know the merits of the cause 
thoroughly, and say it, that my friend is falling a sacrifice to 
prejudiced ignorance, and .... 

God help the children of dependence ! Hated and persecuted 
by their enemies, and too often, alas ! almost unexceptionably, 
received by their friends with disrespect and reproach, under the 
thin disguise of cold civility and humiliating advice. Oh to be a 
sturdy savage, stalking in the pride of his independence, amid tha 
solitary wilds of his deserts, rather than in civilised life helplessly 
to tremble for a subsistence, precarious as the caprice of a fellow- 
creature ! Every man has his virtues, and no man is without his 
failings ; and curse on that privileged plain-dealing of friendship 
which, in the hour of my calamity, cannot reach forth the helping- 
hand without at the same time pointing out those failings, and 
apportioning them their share in procuring my present distress. 
My friends — for such the world calls ye, and such ye think your- 
selves to be — pass by my virtues if you please, but do also spare 
my follies. The first will witness in my breast for themselves, and 
the last will give pain enough to the ingenuous mind without you. 
And since deviating more or less from the paths of propriety and 
rectitude must be incident to human nature, do thou, Fortune, 
put it in my power, always from myself and of myself, to bear the 
the consequence of those errors ! I do not want to be independ- 
ent that I may sin, but I want to be independent in my sinning. 

To return in this rambling letter to the subject I set out with, 
let me recommend my friend Mr Clarke to your acquaintance and 
good offices. His worth entitles him to the one, and his gratitude 
will merit the other. I long much to hear from you. Adieu ! 

R. B. 



BURNS* LETTERS. 645 



CCXLI. 

TO MR THOMAS SLOAN. 

Ellisland, Is* Sept. 1791. 

My dear Sloan, — Suspense is worse than disappointment 
for that reason I hurry to tell you that I just now learn that Mi 
Ballantine does not choose to interfere more in the business. I 
am truly sorry for it, but cannot help it. 

You blame me for not writing you sooner ; but you will please 
to recollect that you omitted one little necessary piece of infor- 
mation — your address. 

However, you know equally well my hurried life, indolent 
temper, and strength of attachment. It must be a longer period 
than the longest life " in the world's hale and undegenerate days, ,J 
that will make me forget so dear a friend as Mr Sloan. I am 
prodigal enough at times, but I will not part with such a treasure 
as that. I can easily enter into the embarrass of your present 
situation. You know my favourite quotation from Young — 

M On Reason build Resolve ! 
That column of true majesty in man." 

A.nd that other favourite one from Thomson's Alfred — 

" What proves the hero truly grea.1, 
Is, never, never to despair." 

Or, shall I quote you an author of your acquaintance ? 

" Whether doing, suffering, or forbearing, 
You may do miracles by — persevering." 

I have nothing new to tell you. The few friends we have are 
going on in the old way. I sold my crop on this day se'en-night, 
and sold it very well. A guinea an acre, on an average, above 
value. But such a scene of drunkenness was hardly ever seen 
in this country. After the roup was over, about thirty people 
engaged in a battle, every man for his own hand, and fought it 
out for three hours. Nor was the scene much better in the house. 
You will easily guess how I enjoyed the scene, as I was no farther 
over than you used to see me. 

Mrs B. and family have been in Ayrshire these many weeks. 

Farewell 1 and God bless you, my dear friend ! R. B. 



CCXLII. 

TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN. 

Ellisland, September 1790 
My Lord, — Language sinks under the ardour of my feelings 
when I would thank your lordship for the honour you have done 



*4G BURNS' LETTERS. 



me in inviting me to make one at the coronation of the bust of 
Thomson. In my first enthusiasm in reading the card you 
did me the honour to write me, I overlooked every obstacle, 
and determined to go ; but I fear it will not be in my power. A 
week or two's absence, in the very middle of my harvest, is what 
I much doubt I dare not venture on. I once already made a pil- 
grimage up the whole course of the Tweed, and fondly would I 
take the same delightful journey down the windings of that de- 
lightful stream. 

Your lordship hints at an ode for the occasion ; but who would 
write after Collins ? I read over his verses to the memory oi 
Thomson, and despaired. I got indeed to the length of three or 
four stanzas, in the way of address to the shade of the bard, on 
crowning his bust. I shall trouble your lordship with the sub- 
joined copy of them (p. 168), which, I am afraid, will be but too 
convincing a proof how unequal I am to the task. However, it 
affords me an opportunity of approaching your lordship, and de- 
claring how sincerely and gratefully I have the honour to be, &c. 

R. B. 



COXLIII. 
TO COLONEL FULLARTON, OF FULLARTON. 

Elltsland, October 3, 1791. 

Sir, — I have just this minute got the frank, and next minute 
must send it to post ; else I purposed to have sent you two or 
three other bagatelles that might have amused a vacant hour, 
about as well as Six Excellent New Songs, or the Aberdeen Prognos- 
tications for the Year to come, I shall probably trouble you soon 
with another packet. About the gloomy month of November, 
when the people of England hang and drown themselves, any- 
thing generally is better than one's own thoughts. 

Fond as I may be of my own productions, it is not for their 
sake that I am so anxious to send you them. I am ambitious^ 
covetously ambitious, of being known to a gentleman whom I am 
proud to call my countryman — a gentleman, who was a foreign 
ambassador as soon as he was a man, and a leader of armies as 
soon as he was a soldier, and that with an eclat unknown to the 
usual minions of a court — men who, with all the adventitious ad- 
vantages of princely connections and princely fortunes, must yet, 
like the caterpillar, labour a whole lifetime before they reach the 
wished-for height, there to roost a stupid chrysalis, and doze out 
the remaining glimmering existence of old age. 

If the gentleman that accompanied you when you did me the 
honour of calling on me, is with you, I beg to be respectfully re- 
membered to him. I have the honour to be your highly obliged, 
and most devoted humble ser7&ot, R> B. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 547 



CCXLIV 
TO MISS DAVIES. 

Madam, — I understand my very worthy neighbour, Mr Riddel, 
has informed you that I have made you the subject of some verses. 
There is something so provoking in the idea of being the burden 
of a ballad, that I do not think Job or Moses, though such pat- 
terns of patience and meekness, could have resisted the curiosity 
to know what that ballad was ; so my worthy friend has done me 
a mischief, which I daresay he never intended, and reduced me 
to the unfortunate alternative of leaving your curiosity ungrati- 
fied, or else disgusting you with foolish verses, the unfinished pro- 
duction of a random moment, and never meant to have met your 
ear. I have heard or read somewhere of a gentleman who had 
gome genius, much eccentricity, and very considerable dexterity 
Tvith his pencil. In the accidental group of life into which one is 
thrown, wherever this gentleman met with a character in a more 
than ordinary degree congenial to his heart, he used to steal a 
sketch of the face : merely, he said, as a nota bene, to point out 
the agreeable recollection to his memory. "What this gentleman's 
pencil was to him, my Muse is to me ; and the verses I do myself 
the honour to send you are a memento exactly of the same kind 
that he indulged in. 

It may be more owing to the fastidiousness of my caprice than 
tlie delicacy of my taste, but I am so often tired, disgusted, and 
hurt with the insipidity, affectation, and pride of mankind, that 
when I meet with a person " after my own heart," I positively 
feel what an orthodox Protestant would call a species of idolatry, 
which acts on my fancy like inspiration ; and I can no more desist 
rhyming on the impulse, than an iEolian harp can refuse its tones 
to the streaming air. A distich or two would be the consequence, 
though the object which hit my fancy were gray-bearded age ; 
but where my theme is youth and beauty, — a young lady whose 
personal charms, wit, and sentiment, are equally striking and 
unaffected,— though I had lived threescore years a married man, 
and threescore years before I was a married man, my imagina- 
tion would hallow the very idea : and I am truly sorry that the 
enclosed stanzas (Lovely Davies, p. 244) have done such poor 
justice to such a subject. R. B. 



CCXLV. 
TO MISS DAVIES. 

It is impossible, madam, that the generous warmth and angelit 
purity of your youthful mind can have any idea of that moral 



2w 



6*8 BURNfe* LETTERS. 



disease under which I unhappily must rank as the chief of sinners 
—I mean a torpitude of the moral powers, that may be called a 
lethargy of conscience. In vain Remorse rears her horrent crest, 
and rouses all her snakes : beneath the deadly fixed eye and leaden 
hand of Indolence, their wildest ire is charmed into the torpor of 
the bat, slumbering out the rigours of winter in the chink of a 
ruined wall. Nothing less, madam, could have made me so long 
neglect your obliging commands. Indeed, I had one apology — 
the bagatelle was not worth presenting. Besides, so strongly am 
I interested in Miss Davies' fate and welfare in the serious busi- 
ness of life, amid its chances and changes, that to make her the 
subject of a silly ballad is downright mockery of these ardent feel- 
ings ; 'tis like an impertinent jest to a dying friend. 

Why this disparity between our wishes and our powers? Why 
is the most generous wish to make others blest impotent and 
ineffectual as the idle breeze that crosses the pathless desert ? 
In my walks of life I have met with a few people to whom how 
gladly would I have said — " Go ! be happy ! I know that youi 
hearts have been wounded by the scorn of the proud, whom acci- 
dent has placed above you — or, worse still, in whose hands are 
perhaps placed many of the comforts of your life. But there ! 
ascend that rock, Independence, and look justly down on their 
littleness of soul. Make the worthless tremble under your indig- 
nation, and the foolish sink before your contempt ; and largely 
impart that happiness to others which, I am certain, will give 
yourselves so much pleasure to bestow." 

Why, dear madam, must I wake from this delightful reverie , 
and find it all a dream ? Why, amid my generous enthusiasm, 
must I find myself poor and powerless, incapable of wiping one 
tear from the eye of Pity, or of adding one comfort to the friend 
I love ! Out upon the world ! say I, that its affairs are adminis- 
tered so ill ! They talk of reform ; what a reform would I make 
among the sons, and even the daughters, of men ! Down imme- 
diately should go fools from the high places where misbegotten 
chance has perked them up, and through life should they skulk,, 
ever haunted by their native insignificance, as the body marches 
accompanied by its shadow. As for a much more formidable 
class,— the knaves,— I am at a loss what to do with them. Had I a 
world, there should not be a knave in it. 

But the hand that could give I would liberally fill ; and I would 
pour delight on the heart that could kindly forgive, and gener- 
ously love. 

Still, the inequalities of life are, among men, comparatively 
tolerable ; but there is a delicacy, a tenderness, accompanying 
every view in which we can place lovely woman, that are grated 
and shocked at the rude, capricious distinctions of Fortune, 
Woman is the blood-royal of life. Let there be slight degrees of 



BURNS* LETTERS. 519 



precedency among them — but let them be ALL sacred. Whether 
this last sentiment be right or wrong, I am not accountable ; it is 
an original component feature of my mind. R. B. 



CCXLVI. 
TO CHARLES SHARPE, ESQ. OF HODDAM: 

ENCLOSING A BALLAD. 

It is true, sir, you are a gentleman of rank and fortune, and I 
am a poor fellow — you are a feather in the cap of Society, and I 
am a very hobnail in his shoes ; yet I have the honour to belong 
to the same family with you, and on that score I now address 
you. You will perhaps suspect that I am going to claim affinity 
with the ancient and honourable house of Kirkpatrick. No, no, 
Bir ; I cannot indeed be properly said to belong to any house, or 
even any province or kingdom ; as my mother, who for many 
years was with a marching regiment, gave me into this bad 
world, aboard the packet-boat, somewhere between Donaghadee 
and Portpatrick. By our common family, — I mean sir, the family 
of the Muses, — I am a fiddler and a poet ; and you, I am told, 
play an exquisite violin, and have a standard taste in the lelks 
lettres. The other day, a brother catgut gave me a charming 
Scots air of your composition. If I was pleased with the tune, I 
was in raptures with the title you have given it ; and, taking up 
the idea, I have spun it into the three stanzas enclosed. Will 
you allow me, sir, to present you them, as the dearest offering 
that a misbegotten son of poverty and rhyme has to give ! I have 
a longing to take you by the hand and unburden my he-art, by 
saying — " Sir, I honour you as a man who supports the dignity 
Df human nature, amid an age when frivolity and avarice have, 
between them, debased us below the brutes that perish 1" But, 
alas, sir ! to me you are unapproachable. It is true the Muses 
baptised me in Castalian streams ; but the thoughtless gipsies 
forgot to give me a name. As the sex have served many a good 
fellow, the Nine have given me a great deal of pleasure ; but, 
bewitching jades! they have beggared me. Would they but spare 
me a little of their cast-iinen 1 were it only to put it in my power 
to say that I have a shirt on my back ! But the idle wenches, 
like Solomon's lilies, " they toil not, neither do they spin ;" so I 
must e'en continue to tie my remnant of a cravat, like the hang- 
man's rope, round my naked throat, and coax my galligaskins to 
keep together their many-coloured fragments. As to the affair 
of shoes, I have given that up. My pilgrimages in my ballad- 
trade from town to town, and on your stony-hearted turnpikes 
too, are what not even the hide of Job's behemoth could bear. 
The coat on my back is no more : I shall not speak evil of the 



150 BURN8' LETTERS. 



dead. It would be equally unhandsome and ungrateful to find 
fault with my old surtout, which so kindly supplies and conceals 
the want of that coat. My hat, indeed, is a great favourite , 
and though I got it literally for an old song, I would not exchange 
it for the best beaver in Britain. I was during several years a 
kind of fac-totum servant to a country clergyman, where I picked 
up a good many scraps of learning, particularly in some branches 
of the mathematics. Whenever 1 feel inclined to rest myself on 
my way, I take my seat under a hedge, laying my poetic wallet 
on the one side, and my fiddle-case on the other, and placing my 
hat between my legs, I can by means of its brim, or rather brims, 
go through the whole doctrine of the conic sections. 

However, sir, don't let me mislead you, as if I would interest 
your pity. Fortune has so much forsaken me, that she has taught 
me to live without her ; and, amid all my rags and poverty, I am 
as independent, and much more happy, than a monarch of the 
world. According to the hackneyed metaphor, I value the several 
actors in the great drama of life simply as they act their parts. 
I can look on a worthless fellow of a duke with unqualified con- 
tempt, and can regard an honest scavenger with sincere respect, 
As you, sir, go through your rdle with such distinguished merit, 
permit me to make one in the chorus of universal applause, and 
assure you that, with the highest respect, I have the honour to bey 
&c. R. B. 



CCXLVII. 

TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. 

1791. 

Sir, — The following circumstance has, I believe, been omitted 
in the statistical account transmitted to you of the parish of Dun- 
score, in Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you because it is new, 
and may be useful. How far it is deserving of a place in your 
patriotic publication you are the best judge. 

To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge 
is certainly of very great importance, both to them as individuals 
and to society at large. Giving them a turn for reading and re- 
flection, is giving them a source of innocent and laudable amuse- 
ment, and, besides, raises them to a more dignified degree in the 
scale of rationality. Impressed with this idea, a gentleman in 
this parish, Robert Riddel, Esq. of Glenriddel, set on foot a species 
of circulating library, on a plan so simple as to be practicable in 
any corner of the country ; and so useful as to deserve the notice 
of every country gentleman who thinks the improvement of that 
part of his own species, whom chance has thrown into the humble 
walks of the peasant and the artisan, a matter worthy of his at- 
tention, 



burns' LETTERS. 551 



Mr Riddel got a number of his own tenants and farming neigh- 
bours to form themselves into a society for the purpose of having 
a library among themselves. They entered into a legal engage- 
ment to abide by it for three years ; with a saving-clause or two, 
in case of removal to a distance or of death. Each member at 
his entry paid five shillings ; and at each of their meetings, which 
were held every fourth Saturday, sixpence more. With their entry- 
money, and the credit which they took on the faith of their future 
funds, they laid in a tolerable stock of books at the commence- 
ment. What authors they were to purchase was always decided 
by the majority. At every meeting, all the books, under certain 
fines and forfeitures, by way of penalty, were to be produced ; and 
the members had their choice of the volumes in rotation. He 
whose name stood for that night first on the list had his -choice of 
what volume he pleased in the whole collection ; the second had 
his choice after the first ; the third after the second ; and so on to 
the last. At next meeting, he who had been first on the list at 
the preceding meeting was last at this ; he who had been second 
was first ; and so on through the whole three years. At the ex- 
piration of the engagement, the books were sold by auction, but 
only among the members themselves; and each man had his 
share of the common stock, in money or in books, as he chose to 
be a purchaser or not. 

At the breaking up of this little society, which was formed under 
Mr Riddel's patronage, what with benefactions of books from him, 
and what with their own purchases, they had collected together 
upwards of one hundred and fifty volumes. It will easily be 
guessed that a good deal of trash would be bought. Among the 
books, however, of this little library, were — Blair's Sermons, Ro- 
bertson's History of Scotland, Hume's History of the Stuarts, The 
Spectator, Idler, Adventurer, Mirror, Lounger, Observer, Man o) 
Feeling, Man of the World, Chrysal, Bon Quixote, Joseph Andrews, 
&c. A peasant who can read, and enjoy such books, is certainly 
a much superior being to his neighbour who perhaps stalks beside 
his team, very little removed, except in shape, from the brutes he 
drives. 

Wishing your patriotic exertions their so much merited success, 
I am, sir, your humble servant, A Peasant 



CCXLVIII. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Ellislant>, 11th December 1791. 
Many thanks to you, madam, for your good news respecting 
the little floweret and the mother-plant. I hope my poetic prayers 
have been heard, and will be answered up to the warmest sincerity 



*** BURNS' LETTERS. 

of their fullest extent ; and then Mr3 Henri will find her little 
darling the representative of his late parent, in everything but 
his abridged existence. 

I have just finished the following song (Song of Death, p. 245), 
which, to a lady, the descendant of Wallace, and many heroes of 
his truly illustrious line — and herself the mother of several soldiers 
— needs neither preface nor apology. 

The circumstance that gave rise to the foregoing verses was — 
Looking over with a musical friend M'Donald's collection of High- 
land airs, I was struck with one— an Isle of Skye tune — entitled 
Oran an Aoig, or the Song of Death, to the measure of which I 
have adapted my stanzas. I have of late composed two or three 
other little pieces, which, ere yon full-orbed moon, whose broad 
impudent face now stares at old Mother Earth all night, shall 
have shrunk into a modest crescent, just peeping forth at dewy- 
dawn, I shall find an hour to transcribe for you. A Dieu je vous 
commende. R. B. 



CCXLIX. 
TO MR AINSLIE. 

My dear Aus'SLIe, — Can you minister to a mind diseased? 
Can you, amid the horrors of penitence, regret, remorse, headache, 
nausea, and all the rest of the hounds of hell that beset a poor 
wretch who has been guilty of the sin of drunkenness — can you 
speak peace to a troubled soul ? 

Miserable perdu that I am ! I have tried everything that used 
to amuse me, but in vain. Here must I sit, a monument of the 
vengeance laid up in store for the wicked, slowly counting every 
chick of the clock as it slowly, slowly numbers over these lazy 
scoundrels of hours, who, * * * *, are ranked up before me, 
every one following his neighbour, and every one with a burden 
of anguish on his back, to pour on my devoted head — and there 
is none to pity me. My wife scolds me, my business torments me, 
and my sins come staring me in the face, every one telling a more 
bitter tale than his fellow. * * I began Elibanks and Elibraes, 
but the stanzas fell unenjoyed and unfinished from my listless 
tongue. At last I luckily thought of reading over an old letter of 
yours that lay by me in my book-case, and I felt something, for 
the first time since I opened my eyes, of pleasurable existence 

Well — I begin to breathe a little since I began to write to you. 

How are you, and what are you doing? How goes law? Apropos, 
for connection's sake, do not address to me supervisor, for that is 
an honour I cannot pretend to. I am on the list, as we call it, for 
a supervisor, and will be called out by-and-by to act as one ; but 
at present I am a simple gauger, though t'other day I got an 



BURNS' LETTERS. 558 

appointment to an excise division of L.25 per annum better than 
the rest. My present income, down money, is L.70 per annum. 

I haye one or two good fellows here whom you would be glad to 
know. R. B. 



CCL. 
TO CLARINDA. 

I have received both your last letters, madam, and ought, and 
would have answered the first long ago. But on what subject 
shall I write you? How can you expect a correspondent should 
write you when you declare that you mean to preserve his letters 
with a view, sooner or later, to expose them on the pillory of de- 
rision and the rack of criticism ? This is gagging me completely 
as to speaking the sentiments of my bosom ; else, madam, I could 
perhaps too truly 

11 Join grief with grief, and echo sighs to thine ! " 

I have perused your most beautiful, but most pathetic poem — do 
not ask me how often or with what emotions. You know that 
" I dare to sin, but not to lie" Your verses wring the confession 
from my inmost soul, that — I will say it, expose it if you please — 
that I have, more than once in my life, been the victim of a con- 
demning conjuncture of circumstances ; and that to me you must 
be ever 

" Dear as the light that visits those sad eves. 

I have just, since I had yours, composed the following stanzas. 
Let me know your opinion of them {Sweet Sensibility, p. 169). 

I have one other piece in your taste ; but I have just a snatch 
of time. Sylvander. 



CCLI. 

TO CLARINDA 

Leadhills, Thursday, Noon {Dec. 11, 1791]. 
[After transcribing the Lament of Mary Queen of Scots, he adds] 
— Such, my dearest Clarinda, were the words of the amiable but 
unfortunate Mary. Misfortune seems to take a peculiar pleasure 
in darting her arrows against " honest men and bonny lasses.'' 
Of this you are too, too just a proof; but may your future fate be 
a bright exception to the remark. In the words of Hamlet — 

" Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me." 

SSTLVANDER. 



*5< BURNS' LETTERS. 



CCLIL 

TO CLARINDA. 

Dumfries [15th Dec. 1791]. 

I HAVE some merit, my ever dearest of women, in attracting 
and securing the heart of Clarinda. In her I met with the most 
accomplished of all womankind, the first of all God's works; and 
yet I, even I, had the good-fortune to appear amiable in her sight. 

By the by, this is the sixth letter that I have written you since I 
left you ; and if you were an ordinary being, as you are a creature 
very extraordinary, — an instance of what God Almighty in the 
plenitude of his power and the fulness of his goodness can make, — 
I would never forgive you for not answering my letters. 

I have sent your hair, a part of the parcel you gave me, with a 
measure, to Mr Bruce the jeweller in Princes Street, to get a ring 
done for me. I have likewise sent in the verses On Sensibility. 
altered to 

«* Sensibility how charming, 

Dearest Nancy, thou canst tell," &c. 

to the editor of the Scots Songs, of which you have three volumes, 
to set to a most beautiful air — out of compliment to the first of 
women, my ever-beloved, my ever-sacred Clarinda. I shall pro- 
bably write you to-morrow. In the meantime, from a man who 
is literally drunk, accept and forgive I R. B. 



CCLIII. 

TO CLARINDA. 

Dumfries, 27th December 1791. 
I have yours, my ever-dearest madam, this moment. I have 
just ten minutes before the post goes, and these I shall employ in 
sending you some songs ( Ae Fond Kiss, p. 246, and Behold the 
Hour, p. 274) I have just been composing to different tunes for the 
Collection of Songs, of which you have three volumes, and of which 
you shall have the fourth. Sylvander. 



CCLIV. 

TO MR WILLIAM SMELLIE, PRINTER. 

Dumfries, 22d January 1792. 
I SIT down, my dear sir, to introduce a young lady to you, and a 
lady j a the first ranks of fashion too. What a task ! to you — who 
eare no more for the herd of animals called young ladies, than you 



BURN? LETTER8. 555 



do for the herd of animals called young gentlemen. To you — who 
despise and detest the groupings and combinations of Fashion, as 
an idiot painter that seems industrious to place staring fools and 
unprincipled knaves in the foreground of his picture, while men 
of sense and honesty are too often thrown in the dimmest shades. 
Mrs Riddel, who will take this letter to town with her, and send 
it to you, is a character that, even in your own way, as a natural- 
ist and a philosopher, would be an acquisition to your acquaint- 
ance. The lady, too, is a rotary to the Muses ; and as I think 
myself somewhat of a judge in my own trade, I assure you that 
her verses, always correct, and often elegant, are much beyond 
the common run of the lady-poetesses of the day. She is a great 
admirer of your book ; and hearing me say that I was acquainted 
with you, she begged to be known to you, as she is just going to 
pay her first visit to our Caledonian capital. I told her that her 
best way was to desire her near relation, and your intimate 
friend, Craigdarroch, to have you at his house while she was 
there ; and lest you might think of a lively West Indian girl oi 
eighteen, as girls of eighteen too often deserve to be thought of, I 
should take care to remove that prejudice. To be impartial, how- 
ever, in appreciating the lady's merits, she has one unlucky fail" 
ing, — a failing which you will easily discover, as she seems rather 
pleased with indulging in it, — and a failing that you will easily 
pardon, as it is a sin which very much besets yourself, — where she 
dislikes or despises, she is apt to make no more a secret of it than 
where she esteems and respects. 

I will not present you with the unmeaning compliments of the 
season, but I will send you my warmest wishes and most ardent 
prayers, that Fortune may never throw your subsistence to the 
mercy of a knave, or set your character on the judgment o£ 
a fool ; but that, upright and erect, you may walk to an honest 
grave, where men of letters shall say — " Here lies a man who did 
honour to science ;" and men of worth shall say — M Here lies a 
man who did honour to human nature." R. B. 



CCLV. 
TO MR WILLIAM NIOOL. 

20th February 1792. 
thou, wisest among the wise, meridian blaze of prudence, 
full-moon of discretion, and chief of many counsellors ! How in- 
finitely is thy puddle-headed, rattle-headed, wrong-headed, round- 
headed slave indebted to thy supereminent goodness, that from 
the luminous path of thy own right-lined rectitude, thou lookest 
benignly down on an erring wretch, of whom the zig-zag wan- 
derings defy all the powers of calculation, from the simple copu* 



566 BURNS' LETTERS. 



lation of units up tc the hidden mysteries of fluxions ! May one 
feeble ray of that light of wisdom which darts from thy sensorium, 
straight as the arrow of heaven, and bright as the meteor of in- 
spiration, may it be my portion, so that I may be less unworthy 
of the face and favour of that father of proverbs and master of 
maxims, — that antipodc of folly and magnet among the sages, — 
the wise and witty Willie Nicol ! Amen ! Amen ! Yea, so 
be it! 

For me ! I am a beast, a reptile, and know nothing ! From 
the cave of my ignorance, amid the fogs of my dulncss, and pes- 
tilential fumes of my political heresies, I look up to thee, as doth 
a toad through the iron-barred lucerne of a pestiferous dungeon, 
to the cloudless glory of a summer sun ! Sorely sighing in bit- 
terness of soul, I say, when shall my name be the quotation of 
the wise, and my countenance be the delight of the godly, like 
the illustrious lord of Laggan's many hills? As for him, his 
works are perfect. Never did the pen of calumny blur the fair 
page cf his reputation, nor the bolt of hatred fly at his dwelling. 

Thou mirror of purity, when shall the elfin lamp of my glini- 
merous understanding, purged from sensual appetites and gross 
desires, shine like the constellation of thy intellectual powers ! 
As for thee, thy thoughts are pure, and thy lips are holy. Never 
did the unhallowed breath of the powers of darkness and the 
pleasures of darkness pollute the sacred flame of thy sky-de- 
scended and heaven-bound desires ; never did the vapours of im- 
purity stain the unclouded serene of thy cerulean imagination. 
that like thine were the tenor of my life, like thine the tenor of 
my conversation ! — then should no friend fear for my strength, no 
enemy rejoice in my weakness ! Then should I lie down and rise 
up, and none to make me afraid. May thy pity and thy prayer 
be exercised for, O thou lamp of wisdom and mirror of morality ! 
thy devoted slave, R. B. 



CCLVI. 

TO MR SAMUEL CLARKE, EDINBURGH. 

16th July 1792. 
Mr Burns begs leave to present his most respectful compli- 
ments to Mr Clarke. Mr B. some time ago did himself the honour 
of writing Mr C. respecting coming out to the country, to gi7e a 
little musical instruction in a highly respectable family, where 
Mr C. may have his own terms, and may be as happy as indolence, 
the devil, and the gout will permit him. Mr B. knows well how 
Mr C. is engaged with another family ; but cannot Mr C. find 
two or three weeks to spare to each of them ? Mr B. is deeply 
impressed with, and awfully conscious of, the high importance of 



BURNS LETTERS. 



557 



Mr C.'s time, whether in the winged moments of symphonious 
exhibition, at the keys of harmony, while listening seraphs cease 
their own less delightful strains ; or, in the drowsy arms of slum- 
berous repose, in the arms of his dearly-beloved elbow-chair, where 
the frowsy but potent power of indolence circumfuses her vapours 
round, and sheds her dews on the head of her darling son. But 
half a line conveying half a meaning from Mr would make Mr 
B. the happiest of mortals 



CCLVII. 
TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Annan Water-Foot, 22d August 1792. 

Do not blame me for it, madam — my own conscience, hack- 
neyed and weather-beaten as it is, in watching and reproving my 
vagaries, follies, indolence, &c, has continued to punish me suf- 
ficiently. 

Do you think it possible, my dear and honoured friend, that I 
could be so lost to gratitude for many favours, to esteem for much 
worth, and to the honest, kind, pleasurable tie of, now old ac- 
quaintance, — and I hope and am sure of progressive, increasing 
friendship, — as for a single day, not to think of you — to ask the 
Fates what they are doing and about to do with my much-loved 
friend and her wide-scattered connections, and to beg of them to 
be as kind to you and yours as they possibly can ? 

Apropos ! — though how it is apropos I have not leisure to ex- 
plain — do you know that I am almost in love with an acquaintance 
of yours? Almost! said I — I am in love, souse over head and 
ears, deep as the most unfathomable abyss of the boundless ocean 
— but the word love, owing to the intcrrningledoms of the good and 
the bad, the pure and the impure, in this world, being rather an 
equivocal term for expressing one's sentiments and sensations, I 
must do justice to the sacred purity of my attachment. Know 
then, that the heart-struck awe, the distant, humble approach, 
the delight we should have in gazing upon and listening to a mes- 
senger of Heaven, appearing in all the unspotted purity of his 
celestial home, among the coarse, polluted, far inferior sons of 
men, to deliver to them tidings that make their hearts swim in 
joy, and their imaginations soar in transport — such, so delighting 
and so pure, were the emotions of my soul on meeting the other 
day with Miss Lesley Baillie, your neighbour at Mayfield. Mr 
B. with his two daughters, accompanied by Mr H. of G., passing 
through Dumfries a few days ago, on their way to England, did 
me the honour of calling on me ; on which I took my horse- 
though, I could ill spare the time — and accompanied them 
fourteen or fifteen miles, and dined and spent the day with 



6$8 BURNS* LETTERS. 



them. 'Twas about nine, I think, when I left them, and riding 
home, I composed the following ballad, of which you will probably 
think you have a dear bargain, as it will cost you another groat 
of postage. You must know that there is an old ballad beginning 
with— 

" My bonnle Lizzie Baillie, 

I'll rowe thee in my plaidie,'' &C. 

So I parodied it as follows (Bonnie Lesley, p. 248), which is literally 
the first copy, " unanointed, unannealed," as Hamletsays. 

So much for "ballads. I regret that you are gone to the east 
countr} T , as I am to be in Ayrshire in about a fortnight. This 
world of ours, notwithstanding it has many good things in it, yet 
it has ever had this curse — that two or three people, who would 
be the happier the oftener they met together, are, almost without 
exception, always so placed as never to meet but once or twice 
a year, which, considering the few years of a man's life, is a 
very great " evil under the sun," which I do not recollect that 
Solomon has mentioned in his catalogue of the miseries of man. 
I hope and believe that there is a state of existence beyond the 
grave, where the worthy of this life will renew their former inti- 
macies, with this endearing addition — that "we meet to part no 
more." 

" Tell us, ye dead. 
Will none of you in pity disclose the secret, 
What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be?" 

A thousand times ha,ve I made this apostrophe to the departed 
sons of men, but not one of them has ever thought fit to answer 
the question. " that some courteous ghost would blab it out 1" 
But it cannot be : you and I, my friend, must make the experi- 
ment by ourselves, and for ourselves. However, I am so convinced 
that an unshaken faith in the doctrines of religion is not only 
necessary, by making us better men, but also by making us hap- 
pier men, that I should take every care that your little godson, 
and every little creature that shall call me father, shall be taught 
them. 

So ends this heterogeneous letter, written at this wild place of 
the world, in the intervals of my labour of discharging a vessel of 
rum from Antigua. R. B, 



CCLVIII. 

TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 

Dumfries, 10th September 1792. 
No ! I will not attempt an apology. Amid all my hurry of 
business, grinding the faces of the publican and the sinner on the 
merciless wheels of the Excise ; making ballads, and then drink- 
ing and singing them ; and, over and above all, the correcting the 



BURNS' LETTERS. B?l 



press-work of two different publications ; still, still I might have 
stolen five minutes to dedicate to one of the first of my friends and 
fellow-creatures. 1 might have done, as I do at present, snatched 
an hour near " witching-time of night," and scrawled a page or 
two. I might have congratulated my friend on his marriage ; or 
I might have thanked the Caledonian archers for the honour they 
have done me (though, to do myself justice, I intended to have 
done both in rhyme, else I had done both long ere now). Well, 
then, here is to your good health ! — for you must know, I have 
set a nipperkin of toddy by me, just by way of spell, to keep away 
the meikle horned deil or any of his subaltern imps, who may be 
on their nightly rounds. 

But what shall I write to you ? — " The voice said, Cry ;" and 
I said, " What shall I cry?" O thou spirit ! whatever thou art, 
or wherever thou makest thyself visible ! — Be thou a bogle by the 
eerie side of an auld thorn, in the dreary glen through which the 
herd-callan maun bicker in his gloamin rout frae the fauld ! Be 
thou a brownie, set, at dead of night, to thy task by the blazing 
ingle, or in the solitary barn, where the repercussions of thy iron 
flail half affright thyself, as thou performest the work of twenty 
of the sons of men, ere the cock-crowing summon thee to thy ample 
cog of substantial brose. Be thou a kelpie, haunting the ford or 
ferry in the starless night, mixing thy laughing yell with the 
howling of the storm and the roaring of the flood, as thou viewest 
the perils and miseries of man on the foundering horse, or in the 
tumbling boat ! Or, lastly, be thou a ghost, paying thy nocturnal 
risits to the hoary ruins of decayed grandeur ; or performing thy 
mystic rites in the shadow of the time-worn church, while the 
moon looks without a cloud on the silent, ghastly dwellings of the 
dead around thee ; or, taking thy stand by the bedside of the 
villain or the murderer, portraying on his dreaming fancy pic- 
tures dreadful as the horrors of unveiled hell, and terrible as the 
wrath of incensed Deity ! Come, thou spirit, but not in these 
horrid forms : come with the milder, gentle, easy inspirations 
which thou breathest round the wig of a prating advocate, or the 
tete-a-tete of a tea-sipping gossip, while their tongues run at the 
light-horse gallop of clish-maclaver for ever and ever — come and 
assist a poor fellow who is quite jaded in the attempt to share half 
an idea among half a hundred words ; to fill up four quarto pages, 
while he has not got one single sentence of recollection, informa- 
tion, or remark, worth putting pen to paper for. * * • * 

Apropos, how do you like — I mean, really like — the married 
life ? Ah, my friend ! matrimony is quite a different thing from 
what your love-sick youths and sighing girls take it to be ! But 
marriage, we are told, is appointed by God, and I shall never 
quarrel with any of His institutions. I am a husband of older 
standing than you, and shall give you my ideas of the conjugal 



fiflO 



burns' letters. 



state. (En passant ; you know I am no Latinist ; is not conjugal de- 
rived from jugum, a yoke ?) Well, then, the scale of good wifeship 
I divide into ten parts :— Good-nature, four ; Good Sense, two; 
Wit, one ; Personal Charms— namely, a sweet face, eloquent eyes, 
fine limbs, graceful carriage (I would add a fine waist too, but 
that is soon spoilt, you know),— all these, one. As for the other 
qualities belonging to or attending on a wife, such as Fortune, 
Connections, Education (I mean education extraordinary), family 
blood, &c, divide the two remaining degrees among them as you 
please ; only, remember that all these minor properties must be 
expressed by fractions, for there is not any one of them, in the 
aforesaid scale, entitled to the dignity of an integer. 

As for the rest of my fancies and reveries — how I lately met 
with Miss Lesley Baillie, the most beautiful, elegant woman in 
the world — how I accompanied her and her father's family fifteen 
miles on their journey out of pure devotion, to admire the loveli- 
ness of the works of God, in such an unequalled display of them — 
how, in galloping home at night, I made a ballad on her, of which 
these two stanzas make a part : — 

"Thou, bonnie Lesley, art a queon, 

Thy subjects we before thee; 
Thou, bonnie Lesley, art divine, 

The hearts o' men adore the<3« 
The very deil he couldna scatho 

Whatever wad belang thee ! 
He d look into thy bonnie face, 

And say, * I canna wrang thee.' " 

Behold all these things are written in the chronicles of my imagi- 
nation, and shall be read by thee, my dear friend, and by thy be- 
loved spouse, my other dear friend, at a more convenient season. 

Now, to thee, and to thy before-designed fcosom-companion, be 
given the precious things brought forth by the sun, and the pre- 
cious things brought forth by the moon, and the benignest in- 
fluences of the stars, and the living streams which flow from the 
fountains of life, and by the tree of life, for ever and ever 
Amen I R. B. 



CCLIX. 
TO MR THOMSON. 

Dumfries, 16th Sept. 1792. 
Sir, — I have just this moment got your letter. As the request 
you make to me will positively add to my enjoyments in comply 
ing with it, I shall enter into your undertaking with all the small 
portion of abilities 1 have, strained to their utmost exertion by 
the impulse of enthusiasm. Only, don't hurry me — " Deil tak the 
hindmost " is by no means the cri de guerre of my Muse. Will 



BURNS LETTERS. 5C1 

you, as I am inferior to none of you in enthusiastic attachment 
to the poetry and music of old Caledonia, and, since you request 
it. have cheerfully promised my mite of assistance — will you let 
me have a list of your airs, with the first line of the printed verses 
you intend for them, that I may have an opportunity of suggest^ 
ing any alteration that may occur to me ? You know 'tis in the 
way of my trade ; still leaving you, gentlemen, the undoubted 
right of publishers to approve or reject, at your pleasure, for your 
own publication. Apropos, if you are for English verses, there is, 
on my part, an end of the matter. Whether in the simplicity of 
the ballad, or the pathos of the song, I can only hope to please 
myself in being allowed at least a sprinkling of our native tongue. 
English verses, particularly the works of Scotsmen that have 
merit, are certainly very eligible. Tweedside ! Ah / the poor 
shepherd's mournful fate f Ah f Chloris, could I now but sit, &c, 
you cannot mend ; but such insipid stuff as To Fanny fair could 1 
impart, &c, usually set to The Mill, Mill, Of is a disgrace to the 
collections in which it has already appeared, and would doubly 
disgrace a collection that will have the very superior merit of 
yours. But more of this in the further prosecution of the busi- 
ness, if I am called on for my strictures and amendments — I say 
amendments, for I will not alter except where I myself, at le>st, 
think that I amend. 

As to any remuneration, you may think my songs either above 
or below price ; for they shall absolutely be the one or the other. 
In the honest enthusiasm with which I embark in your undertak- 
ing, to talk of money, wages, fee, hire, &c, would be downright 
prostitution of soul ! A proof of each of the songs that I compose 
or amend I shall receive as a favour. In the rustic phrase of the 
season, " Gude speed the wark !" I am, sir, your very humble 
servant, R. Burns. 



CCLX. 

TO MRS DXJNLOP. 

Dumfries, 2±th September 1792. 

I have this moment, my dear madam, yours of the 23d. All 
your other kind reproaches, your news, &c, are out of my head, 
when I read and think on Mrs Henri's situation. A heart- 
wounded, helpless young woman — in a strange foreign land, and 
that land convulsed with every horror that can harrow the human 
feelings — sick — looking, longing for a comforter, but finding none 
— a mother's feelings too — but it is too much : He who wounded 
— He only can — may He heal ! 

I wish the farmer great joy of his new acquisition to his family. 
* * * I cannot say that I give him joy of his life as a farmer 



0(52 BURNS' LETTERS. 

"lis as a farmer paying a dear, unconscionable rent — a horrid life 
As to a laird farming his own property, sowing his own corn in 
hope and reaping it, in spite of brittle weather, in gladness ; 
knowing that none can say unto him, " What dost thou ?" — fatten- 
ing his herds, shearing his flocks, rejoicing at Christmas, and 
begetting sons and daughters, until he be the venerated, gray- 
haired leader of a little tribe — 'tis a heavenly life ! but it is very 
bitter to reap the fruits that another must eat. 

Well, your kind wishes will be gratified as to seeing note when 
I make my Ayrshire visit. I cannot leave Mrs B. until her nine 
months' race is run, which may, perhaps be in three or four weeks. 
She, too, seems determined to make me the patriarchal leader of 
a band. However, if heaven will be so obliging as to let me have 
them in the proportion of three boys to one girl, I shall be so 
much the more pleased. T hope, if I am spared with them, to 
show a set of boys that will do honour to my cares and name ; but 
I am not equal to the task of rearing girls. Besides, I am too 
poor — a girl should always have a fortune. Apropos — your 
little godson is thriving charmingly, but is a very tiger. He, 
though two years younger, has completely mastered his brother. 
Robert is indeed the mildest, gentlest creature I ever saw. He 
has a most surprising memory, and is quite the pride of his 
schoolmaster. 

You know how readily we get into prattle upon a subject dear to 
:ur heart — you can exouse it. God bless you and yours ! R. B. 



CCLXI. 
TO MR THOMSON. 

My dear Sir, — Let me tell you that you are too fastidious in 
your ideas of songs and ballads. I own that your criticisms are 
just. The songs you specify in your list have, all but one, the 
faults you remark in them; but who shall mend the matter? 
Who shall rise up and say, " Go to ! I will make a better ?" For 
instance, on reading over The Lea-Rig, I immediately set about 
trying my hand on it, and, after all, I could make nothing more 
of it than the following (p. 259), which is poor enough. 

Your observation as to the aptitude of Dr Percy's ballad to the 
air, Nannie 1 is just. It is besides, perhaps, the most beautiful 
ballad in the English language. ' But let me remark to you, that 
in the sentiment and style of our Scottish airs there is a pastoral 
simplicity, a something that one may call the Doric style and 
dialect.of vocal music, to which a dash of our native tongue and 
manners is particularly— nay, peculiarly apposite. For this reason, 
and, upon my honour, for this reason alone, I am of opinion — but, 



burns' letters. 



568 



as I told you before, my opinion is yours, freely yours, to approve 
or reject, as you please — that my ballad of Nannie, 01 might per- 
haps do for one set of verses to the tune. Now don't let it enter 
into your head that you are under any necessity of taking my 
verses. I have long ago made up my mind as to my own reputa- 
tion in the business of authorship, and have nothing to be pleased 
or offended at in your adoption or rejection of my verses. Though 
you should reject one-half of what I give you, I shall be pleased ' 
with your adopting the other half, and shall continue to serve 
you with the same assiduity. 

In the printed copy of My Nannie, 0/ the name of the river is 
horridly prosaic. I will alter it — 

44 Behind yon hills where Lugar flows." 

Girvan is the name of the river that suits the idea of the stanza 
best, but Lugar is the most agreeable modulation of syllables. 

I will soon give you a great many more remarks on this busi- 
ness ; but I have just now an opportunity of conveying you this 
Rcrawl, free of postage, an expense that it is ill able to pay ; so, 
with my best compliments to honest Allan, Gude be wi' ye, &c. 
Friday Night. 

■ Saturday Morning. 

As I find I have still an hour to spare this morning before my 
conveyance goes away, I will give you Nannie 0/ at length. 

Your remarks on Ewe-bughts, Marion, are just ; still it ha3 
obtained a place among our more classical Scottish songs ; and 
what with many beauties in its composition, and more prejudices 
in its favour, you will not find it easy to supplant it. 

In my very early years, when I was thinking of going to the 
West Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl. It is 
|uite trifling, and has nothing of the merits of Ewe-bughts ; but 
it will fill up this page. You must know that all my earlier love- 
songs were the breathings of ardent passion ; and though it might 
have been easy in after-times to have given them a polish, yet 
that polish to me, whose they were, and who perhaps alone cared 
for them, would have defaced the legend of my heart, which was 
so faithfully inscribed on them. Their uncouth simplicity was, 
as they say of wines, their race. 

Gala Water and Auld Rob Morris, I think, will most probably be 
the next subject of my musings. However, even on my verses, 
speak out your criticisms with equal frankness. My wish is, not 
to stand aloof, the uncomplying bigot of opinidtrete, but cordially 
to ;oin issue with you in the furtherance of the work. R. B. 



664 BURNS' LETTERS. 



CCLXII. 
TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Dumfries, October 1792. 

I had been from home, and did not receive your letter until my 
return the other day. "What shall I say to comfort you, my much- 
valued, much-afflicted friend ? I can but grieve with you ; con- 
solation I have none to offer, except that which religion holds out 
to the children of affliction, — (children of affliction I — how just the 
expression !), — and, like every other family, they have matters 
among them which they hear, see, and feel in a serious, all-im- 
portant manner, of which the world has not, nor cares to have, 
any idea. The world looks indifferently on, makes the passing 
remark, and proceeds to the next novel occurrence. 

Alas, madam ! who would wish for many years? What is it 
but to drag existence until our joys gradually expire, and leave 
us in a night of misery — like the gloom which blots out the stars, 
one by one, from the face of night, and leaves us without a ray oi 
comfort in the howling waste ! 

I am interrupted, and must leave off. You shall soon hear 
from me again. R. B. 



CCLXIII. 
TO MR THOMSON. 

November 8, 1792. 

If you mean, my dear sir, that all the songs in your collection 
shall be poetry of the first merit, I am afraid you will find more 
difficulty in the undertaking than you are aware of. There is a 
peculiar rhythmus in many of our airs, and a necessity of adapting 
syllables to the emphasis, or what I would call the feature-notes of 
the tune, that cramp the poet, and lay him under almost insuper- 
able difficulties. For instance, in the air, My Wife's a Wanton 
Wee Thing, if a few lines smooth and pretty can be adapted to it, 
it is all you can expect. The following (p. 258) were made ex- 
tempore to it ; and though, on further study, I might 'give you 
something more profound, yet it might not suit the light-horse 
gallop of the air so well as this random clink. 

I have just been looking over the Collie?-'s Bonnie Bochter; and 
if the following rhapsody (Bonnie Lesley, p. 248), which I composed 
the other day on a charming Ayrshire girl, Miss Lesley Baillie of 
Mayfield, as she passed through this place to England, will suit 
your taste better than the Collier Lassie, fall on, and welcome. 

I have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more pathetic airs, until 
more leisure, as they will take, and deserve, a greater effort, 



BURNS' LETTERS. 50A 



However, they are all put into your hands, as clay into the hands 
of the potter, to make one vessel to honour, and another to dis- 
honour. Farewell, &o. R. B. 



CCLXIV. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

14th November 1792. 

My dear Sir, — I agree with you that the song, Katharine Ogie, 
is very poor stuff, and unworthy, altogether unworthy, of so beau- 
tiful an air. I tried to mend it, but the awkward sound, Ogie, 
recurring so often in the rhyme, spoils every attempt at intro- 
ducing sentiment into the piece. The foregoing song (Highland 
Mary, p. 258) pleases myself; I think it is in my happiest manner ; 
you will see at first glance that it suits the air. The subject of 
the song is one of the most interesting passages of my youthful 
days, and I own that I should be much flattered to see the verses 
set to an air which would insure celebrity. Perhaps, after all, 
'tis the still glowing prejudice of my heart tiiat throws a borrowed 
lustre over the merits of the composition. 

I have partly taken your idea of Auld Rob Morris, I have 
adopted the two first verses, and am going on with the song on a 
new plan, which promises pretty well. I take up one or another, 
just as the bee of the moment buzzes in my bonnet-lug; and do 
you, sans ceremonie, make what use you choose of the productions. 
Adieu, &c. R. B. 



CCLXV. 
TO MISS FONTENELLE. 

Madam, — In such a bad world as ours, those who add to the 
scanty sum of our pleasures are positively our benefactors. To 
you, madam, on our humble Dumfries boards, I have been more 
indebted for entertainment than ever I was in prouder theatres. 
Your charms as a woman would insure applause to the most in- 
different actress, and your theatrical talents would insure admira- 
tion to the plainest figure. This, madam, is not the unmeaning 
or insidious compliment of the frivolous or interested ; I pay it 
from the same honest impulse that the sublime of nature excites 
my admiration, or her beauties give me delight. 

Will the foregoing lines (p. 170) be of any service to you in 
your approaching benefit night ? If they will, I shall be prouder 
of my Muse than ever. They are nearly extempore : I know 
they have no great merit ; but though they should add but little 
to the entertainment of the evening, they give me the happiness 
of an opportunity to declare how much I have the honour to be, 
&c, R. B. 



£66 BUttNS' LETTERS. 



CCLXV1. 
TO MRS RIDDEL. 



I AM thinking to send my Address to some periodical publica- 
tion, but it has not got your sanction ; so pray look over it. 

As to the Tuesday's play, let me beg of you, my dear madam, to 
give us The Wonder, a Woman keeps a Secret I to which please 
add The Spoilt Child — you -will highly oblige me by so doing. 

Ah, what an enviable creature you are ! There now, this 
gloomy blue-devil day, you are going to a party of choice spirits — 

" To play the shapes 
Of frolic fancy, and incessant form 
Those rapid pictures, an assembled train 
Of fleet ideas, never joined before. 
Where lively Wit excites to gay surprise ; 
Or folly-painting Humour, grave himself, 
Calls laughter forth, deep shaking every nerve." 

But as you rejoice with them that do rejoice, do also remember 
to weep with them that weep, and pity your melancholy friend, 

R.B. 



CCLXVII. 
TO 



Madam, — You were so very good as to promise me to honour 
my friend with your presence on his benefit night. That night 
is fixed for Friday first; the play a most interesting one — The 
Way to Keep Him. I have the pleasure to know Mr G. well. 
His merit as an actor is generally acknowledged. He has genius 
and worth which would do honour to patronage : he is a poor and 
modest man ; claims which, from their very silence, have the 
more forcible power on the generous heart. Alas, for pity ! that 
from the indolence of those who have the good things of this life 
in their gift, too often does brazen-fronted importunity snatch 
that boon, the rightful due of retiring, humble want I Of all the 
qualities we assign to the Author and Director of Nature, by far the 
most enviable is, to be able "to wipe away all tears from all eyes." 
what insignificant, sordid wretches are they, however chance 
may have loaded them with wealth, who go to their graves, to 
their magnificent mausoleums, with hardly the consciousness of 
having made one poor honest heart happy. 

But I crave your pardon, madam ; I came to beg not to preach. 

R. B. 



burns' letters. Ml 



CCLXVIII. 

TO MRS RIDDEL. 

I will wait on you my ever-valued friend, but whether in the 
morning I am not sure. Sunday closes a period of our provoking 
revenue business, and may probably keep me employed with my 
pen until noon. Fine employment for a poet's pen I There is a 
species of the human genius that I call the gin-horse class — what 
enviable dogs they are ! Round, and round, and round they go. 
Mundell's ox, that drives his cotton-mill, is their exact prototype 
— without an idea or wish beyond their circle— fat, sleek, stupid, 
patient, quiet, and contented ; while here I sit, altogether Novem- 
berish, a melange of fretfulness and melancholy ; not enough of 
the one to rouse me to passion, nor of the other to repose me in 
torpor ; my soul flouncing and fluttering round her tenement, like 
a wild-finch, caught amid the horrors of winter, and newly thrust 
into a cage. Well, I am persuaded that it was of me the Hebrew 
sage prophesied, when he foretold — " And, behold, on whatsoever 
this man doth set his heart, it shall not prosper!" If my. re« 
Bentment is awaked, it is sure to be where it dare not squeak. 

Pray that wisdom and bless be more frequent visitors of 

R. B. 



CCLXIX. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

Dumfries, 1st Dec. 1792. 
Your alterations of My Nannie, ! are perfectly right. So 
are those of My Wife's a Winsome Wee Thing. Your alteration of 
the second stanza is a positive improvement. Now, my dear sir, 
with the freedom which characterises our correspondence, I must 
not, cannot alter Bonnie Lesley. You are right; the word " Alex- 
ander" makes the line a little uncouth, but I think the thought 
is pretty. Of Alexander, beyond all other heroes, it may be said, 
in the sublime language of Scripture, that " he went forth con- 
quering and to conquer." 

" For nature made her what she is, 
And never made anither." 

This is, in my opinion, more poetical than " Ne'er made sio 
anither." However, it is immaterial ; make it either way. " Ca- 
ledonie," I agree with you, is not so good a word as could be 
wished, though it is sanctioned in three or four instances by Allan 
Ramsay ; but 1 cannot help it. In short, that species of stanza 
is the most difficult that I have ever tried. 

The Lea-Rig is as follows (p. 259). 

I am interrupted. Yours, &c, R. B. 



*68 BURNS' LETTERS. 



CCLXX. 

TO MISS MARY PEACOCK. 

Dec. 6, 1792. 
Dear Madam, — I have written so often to you and have got 
no answer that I had resolved never to lift a pen to you again ; 
but this eventful day, the Sixth of December, recalls to my memory 
such a scene ! * * when I remember a far-distant person ! — 
but no more of this until I learn from you a proper address, and 
why my letters have lain by you unanswered, as this is the third 
I have sent you. The opportunities will be all gone, now, I fear, 
of sending over the book I mentioned in my last. Do not write 
me for a week, as I shall not be at home, but as soon after that 
as possible. 

M Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December, 
Ance mair I hail thee wi' sorrow and care ; 
Dire was the parting thou bids me remember, 
Farting wi' Nancy, oh, ne'er to meet mairl" 

Yours, R. B. 



CCLXXI. 
TO CAPTAIN JOHNSTONE. 

Dumfries, Nov. 13, 1792. 

Sir, — I have just read your prospectus of the Edinburgh Gazet- 
teer. If you go on in your paper with the same spirit, it will/beyond 
all comparison, be the firit composition of the kind in Europe. I 
beg leave to insert my name as a subscriber, and if you have 
already published any papers, please send me them from the 
beginning. Point out your own way of settling payments in this 
place, or I shall settle with you through the medium of my friend, 
Peter Hill, bookseller in Edinburgh. 

Go on, sir ! Lay bare with undaunted heart and steady hand 
that horrid mass of corruption called politics and state-craft. 
Dare to draw in their native colours those — 

M Calm-thinking villains whom no faith can Are," 

whatever be the shibboleth of their pretended party. 

The address to me at Dumfries will find, sir, your very humble 
servant, Robert Burns. 



OCLXXII. 
TO MRS DUNLOP. 



Dumfries, 6th December 1792 
I 6H^.ll be in Ayrshire, I think, next week ; and, if at all 



i 



burns' letters. sea 



possible, I shall certainly, my much-esteemed friend, have the j 
pleasure of visiting at Dunlop House. 

Alas, madam, how seldom do we meet in this world, that we 
hare reason to congratulate ourselves on accessions of happiness ! 
I have not passed half the ordinary term of an old man's life, and : 
yet I scarcely look over the obituary of a newspaper that I do not 
see some names that I have known, and which I and other ac- : 
quaintances little thought to meet with there so soon. Every other j 
instance of the mortality of our kind makes us cast an anxious ' 
look into the dreadful abyss of uncertainty, and shudder with 
apprehension for our own fate. But of how different an import- 
ance are the lives of different individuals ! Nay, of what import- ■ 
ance is one period of the same life more than another ? A few I 
years ago I could have lain down in the dust, u careless of the . 
voice of the morning ;" and now not a few, and these most help- I 
less individuals, would, on losing me and my exertions, lose both 
their " staff and shield." By the way, these helpless ones have 
lately got an addition — Mrs B. having given me a fine girl since 
I wrote you. There is a charming passage in Thomson's Edward , 
and Eleanor a .- — 

■ The valiant, tn himself, what can he suffer? 
Or irhat need he regard his single woes Y'—Lc, 

As I am got in the way of quotations, I shall give you another j 
from the same piece, peculiarly — alas ! too peculiarly — apposite, 
my dear madam, to your present frame of mind : — 

" Who so unworthy but may proudly deck him 
With hia fair-weather virtue, that exults 
Glad o'er the summer main ? The tempest eo mc Sj 

The rough winds rage aloud ; when from the helm 
This virtue shrinks, and in a corner lies 
Lamenting. Heavens ! if privileged from trial, 
How cheap a thing were virtue l* 

I do not remember to have heard you mention Thomson's 
dramas. I pick up favourite quotations, and store them in my 
mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle ; 
of this turbulant existence. Of these is one, a very favourite one, 
from his Alfred : — 

" Attach thee firmly to the virtuous deeds 
And offices of life ; to life itself, 
With all its vain and transient joys, sit loo&e." 

Probably I have quoted some of these to you formerly, as in- 
deed, when I write from the heart, I am apt to be guilty of such 
repetitions. The compass of the heart, in the musical style of : 
expression, La much more bounded than that of the imagination, 
so the notes of the former are extremely apt to run into one 
another; but in return for the paucity of its compass, its few j 
notes are much more sweet. I must still give you another quota- 
tion, which I am almost sure I have given you before, but I can- • 



570 BURNS' letters. 

not resist the temptation. The subject is religion : speaking oi 
its importance to mankind, the author says — 

"'Tis this, my friend, that streaks pur morning bright," &c. 

I see you are in for double postage, so I shall e'en scribble out 
t'other sheet. We in this country here have many alarms of the 
reforming, or rather the republican spirit of your part of the king- 
dom. Indeed we are a good deal in commotion ourselves. For 
me, I am a placeman, you know; a very humble one indeed 
Heaven knows, but still so much as to gag me. What my priv te 
sentiments are you will find out without an interpreter. 

I have taken up the subject, and the other day, for a pretty 
actress's benefit night, I wrote an Address, which I will give on the 
other page, called The Rights of Woman, 

I shall have the honour of receiving your criticisms in person 
at Dunlon. R. B. 



CCLXXIII. 
TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ., FINTRY. 

December 1792 
Sir, — I have been surprised, confounded, and distracted by Mr 
Mitchell, the collector, telling me that he has received an order 
from your Board to inquire into my political conduct, and blam- 
ing me as a person disaffected to government. 

Sir, you are a husband and a father; you know what you 
would feel to see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and your 
helpless, prattling little ones turned adrift into the world, degraded 
and disgraced from a situation in which they had been respect- 
able and respected, and left almost without the necessary support of 
a miserable existence. Alas ! sir, must I think that such soon will 
be my lot ! and from the dark insinuations of wicked, groundless 
envy too 1 I believe, sir, I may aver it, and in the sight of Omni- 
science, that I would not tell a deliberate falsehood, no, not though 
even worse horrors, if worse can be, than those I have mentioned, 
hung over my head ; and I say, that the allegation, whatever 
villain has made it, is a lie ! To the British Constitution, on re- 
volution principles, next after my God, I am most devoutly at- 
tached. You, sir, have been much and generously my friend — 
Heaven knows how warmly I have felt the obligation, and how 
gratefully I have thanked you. Fortune, sir, has made you power- 
ful, and me impotent — has given you patronage, and me depend- 
ence. I would not, for my single self, call on your humanity ; were 
such my insular, unconnected situation, I would despise the tear 
that now swells in my eye — I could brave misfortune, I could face 
rmn, for at the worst " Death's thousand doors stand open ;"' but, 



BURNS* LETTERS. 571 



the tender concerns that I have mentioned, the claims and ties 
that I see at this moment, and feel around me, how they unnerve 
courage and Wither resolution ! To your patronage, as a man of 
some genius, you have allowed me a claim ; and your esteem, as an 
honest man, I know is my due. To these, sir, permit me to ap« 
peal ; by these may I adjure you to save me from that misery 
which threatens to overwhelm me, and which — with my latest 
breath I will say it — I have not deserved. R. B. 



CCLXXIV. 
TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Dumfries, Zlst December 1792. 
Dear Madam, — A hurry of business, thrown in heaps by my 
absence, has, until now, prevented my returning my grateful ac- 
knowledgments to the good family of Dunlop, and you in particu- 
lar, for that hospitable kindness which rendered the four days I 
spent under that genial roof four of the pleasantest I ever enjoyed. 
Alas, my dearest friend I how few and fleeting are those thing3 
we call pleasures. On my road to Ayrshire I spent a night with 
a friend whom I much valued — a man whose days promised to be 
many ; and on Saturday last we laid him in the dust ! 

Jan. 2d, 1793. 

I have just received yours of the 30th, and feel much for your 
situation. However, I heartily rejoice in your prospect of recovery 
from that vile jaundice. As to myself, I am better, though not 
quite free of my complaint. You must not think, as you seem to 
insinuate, that in my way of life I want exercise. Of that I have 
enough ; but occasional hard drinking is fatal to me. Against 
this I have again and again bent my resolution, and have greatly 
succeeded. Taverns I have totally abandoned : it i3 the private 
parties in the family way, among the hard-drinking gentlemen of 
this country, that do me the mischief ; but even this I have more 
than half given over. 

Mr Corbet can be of little service to me at present ; at least I 
should be shy of applying. I cannot possibly be settled as a super- 
visor for several years. I must wait the rotation of the list ; and 
there are twenty names before mine. I might, indeed, get a job 
of officiating where a settled supervisor was ill or aged ; but that 
hauls me from my family, as I could not remove them on such an 
uncertainty. Besides, some envious, malicious fellow has raised 
a little demur on my political principles, and I wish to let that 
matter settle before I offer myself too much in the eye of my super- 
visors. I have set, henceforth, a seal on my lips as to these unlucky 
politics ; but to you I must breathe my sentiments. In this, as in 



672 BURNS' LETTERS. 



everything else, I shall shew the undisguised emotions of my soul 
War I deprecate : misery and ruin to thousands are in the blast 
that announces the destructive demon. * * * • R. B. 



CCLXXV. 
TO THE SAME. 

bth January 1793. 

You see my hurried life, madam ; I can only command starts 
of time; however, I am glad of one thing — since I finished the 
other sheet the political blast that threatened my welfare is over- 
blown. I have corresponded with Commissioner Graham — for the 
Board had made me the subject of their animadversions ; and now 
I have the pleasure of informing fc you that all is set to rights in 
that quarter. 

Alas ! how little do the wantonly or idly officious think what 
mischief they do by their malicious insinuations, indirect imperti- 
nence, or thoughtless blabbings. What a difference there is in 
intrinsic worth, candour, benevolence, generosity, kindness— in all 
the charities and all the virtues — between one class of human 
beings and another. For instance, the amiable circle I so lately 
mixed with in the hospitable hall of Dunlop, — their generous hearts, 
their uncontaminated dignified minds, their informed and polished 
understandings, — what a contrast when compared — if such com- 
paring were not downright sacrilege — with the soul of the mis- 
creant who can deliberately plot the destruction of an honest man 
that never offended him, and with a grin of satisfaction see the 
Unfortunate being, his faithful wife, and prattling innocents, 
turned over to beggary and ruin. 

Your cup, my dear madam, arrived safe. I had two worthy 
fellows dining with me the other day, when I with great forma- 
lity produced my whigraaleerie cup, and told them that it had 
been a family-piece among the descendants of William Wallace. 
This roused such an enthusiasm that they insisted on bumpering 
the punch round in it ; and by and by never did your great ances- 
tor lay a suthron more completely to rest than for a time did your 
cup my two friends. Apropos, this is the season of wishing. May 
God bless you, my dear friend, and bless me, the humblest and 
sincerest of your friends, by granting you yet many returns of the 
season ! May all good things attend you and yours, wherever 
they are scattered over the earth I R. B, 



BURNS' LETTERS. 578 



CCLXXVI. 
TO MR THOMSON. 

2Gth January 1793. 

I approve greatly, my dear sir, of your plans. Dr Beattie's 
Essay will of itself be a treasure. On roy part I mean to draw up 
an appendix to the Doctor's Essay, containing my stock of anec- 
dotes, &c, of our Scots songs. All the late Mr Tytler's anecdotes 
I have by me, taken down in the course of my acquaintance with 
him from his own mouth. I am such an enthusiast, that in the 
course of my several peregrinations through Scotland I made a 
pilgrimage to the individual spot from which every song took its 
rise — Lochaber and the Braes of BaUenden excepted. So far as 
tfae locality, either from the title of the air or the tenor of the 
song, could be ascertained, I have paid my devotions at the par- 
ticular shrine of every Scots Muse. 

1 do not doubt but you might make a very valuable collection 
of Jacobite songs ; but would it give no offence ? In the mean- 
time, do not you think that some of them, particularly The Sow's 
Tail to Geordie, as an air, with other words, might be well worth 
a place in your collection of lively songs ? 

If it were possible to procure songs of merit, it would be proper 
to have one set of Scots words to every air, and that the set of 
words to which the notes ought to be set. There is a naivete, a 
pastoral simplicity, in a slight intermixture of Scots words and 
phraseology, which is more in unison — at least to my taste, and 
I will add, to every genuine Caledonian taste — with the simple 
pathos or rustic sprightliness of our native music, than any Eng- 
lish verses whatever. 

The very name of Peter Pindar is an acquisition to your work. 
His Gregory is beautiful. I have tried to give you a set of stanzas 
in Scots on the same subject, which are at your service. Not that 
I intend to enter the lists with Peter ; that would be presumption 
indeed. My song, though much inferior in poetic merit, has, I 
think, more of the ballad simplicity in it (p. 263). R. B. 



CCLXXVII. 

TO CLARINDA. 

I suppose, my dear madam, that by your neglecting to inform 
me of your arrival in Europe, — a circumstance that could not be 
indifferent to me, as indeed no occurrence relating to you can, — 
you meant to leave me to guess and gather that a correspondence 
I once had the honour and felicity to enjoy is to be no more 



*** BURNS* LETTERS. 



Alas! what h(, ivy-laden sounds are these— " No more!" The 
wretch who has never tasted pleasure has never known wo ; what 
drives the soul to madness is the recollection of joys that are " no 
more !" But this is not language to the world— they do not under- 
stand it. But come, ye few— the children of Feeling and Senti- 
ment ! — ye whose trembling bosom-chords ache to unutterable 
anguish as recollection gushes on the heart !— ye who are capable 
of an attachment keen as the arrow of Death, and strong as the 
vigour of immortal being— come ! and your ears shall drink a 
tale But, hush ! I must not, cannot tell it ; agony is in the re- 
collection, and frenzy in the recital ! 

But, madam, to leave the paths that lead to madness, I congra- 
tulate your friends on your return ; and I hope that the precious 
health, which Miss P. tells me is so much injured, is restored or 
restoring. There is a fatality attends Miss Peacock's correspond- 
ence and mine. Two of my letters, it seems, she never received; 
and her last came while I was in Ayrshire, was unfortunately 
mislaid, and only found about ten days or a fortnight ago, on 
removing a desk of drawers. 

I present you a book — may I hope you will accept of it. 1 
daresay you will have brought your books' with you. The fourth 
volume of the Scots Songs is published ; I will presume to send 
it you. Shall I hear from you? But first hear me. No cold 
language— no prudential documents : I despise advice* and scorn 
control. If you are not to write such language, such sentiments 
as you know I shall wish, shall delight to receive, I conjure you, 
by wounded pride, by ruined peace, by frantic, disappointed pas- 
sion, by all the many ills that constitute that sum of human woes, 
a broken heart !! ! — to me be silent for ever. * * * * R. B. 



COLXXVIII. 

TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 

3d March 1793. 

Since I wrote to you the *ast lugubrious sheet, I have not had 
time to write you farther. When I say that I had not time, that, 
as usual, means that the three demons— Indolence, Business, and 
Ennui — have so completely shared my hours among them as not to 
leave me a five minutes' fragment to take up a pen in. 

Thank Heaven, I feel my spirits buoying upwards with the 
renovating year. Now I shall in good earnest take up Thomson's 
songs. I daresay he thinks I have used him unkindly ; and, I 
must own, with too much appearance of truth. Apropos, do 
you know the much-admired old Highland air called The Sutors 
Dochter ? It is a first-rate favourite of mine, and I have written 
what I reckon one of my best songs to it. I will send it to you as 



burns' letters, 578 



it was sung, with great applause, in some fashionable circles, by 
Major Robertson of Lude, who was here with his corps. 

There is one commission that I must trouble you with. I lately 
lost a valuable seal, a present from a departed friend, which vexes 
me much. I have gotten one of your Highland pebbles, which I 
fancy would make a very decent one, and I want to cut my armo- 
rial bearing on it : will you be so obliging as inquire what will 
be the expense of such a business ? I do not know that my name 
is matriculated, as the heralds call it, at all, but I have invented 
arm3 for myself; so, you know, I shall be chief of the name, and, 
by courtesy of Scotland, will likewise be entitled to supporters. 
These, however, I do not intend having on my seal. I am a bit 
of a herald, and shall give you, secundum artem, my arms. On 
a field, azure, a holly-bush, seeded, proper, in base ; a shepherd's 
pipe and crook, saltier-wise, also proper, in chief. On a wreath of 
the colours, a woodlark perching on a sprig of bay-tree, proper, 
for crest. Two mottoes : round the top of the crest, Wood-notes 
wild ; at the bottom of the shield, in the usual place, Better a 
wee bush than nae Meld. By the shepherd's pipe and crook I do 
not mean the nonsense of painters of Arcadia, but a stock and horn, 
and a club, such as you see at the head of Allan Ramsay, in 
Allan's quarto edition of the Gentle Shepherd. By the by, do you 
know Allan ? He must be a man of very great genius. Why is 
he not more known ? Has he no patrons ? — or do " Poverty's 
cold wind and crushing rain beat keen and heavy" on him ? I 
once, and but once, got a glance of that noble edition of the 
noblest pastoral in the world ; and dear as it was — I mean dear 
as to my pocket — I would have bought it, but I was told that it 
was printed and engraved for subscribers only. He is the only 
artist who has hit genuine pastoral costume. "What, my dear 
Cunningham, is there in riches that they narrow and harden the 
heart so ? I think, that were I as rich as the sun, I should be as 
generous as the day ; but as I have no reason to imagine my 
soul a nobler one than any other man's, I must conclude that 
wealth imparts a bird-lime quality to the possessor, at which the 
man in his native poverty would have revoKed. What has led 
me to this is the idea of such merit as Mr Allan possesses, and 
such riches as a nabob or government contractor possesses, and 
why they do not form a mutual league. Let wealth shelter and 
cherish unprotected merit, and the gratitude and celebrity of that 
merit will richly repay it. R« B. 



576 BURNS' LETTERS. 



CCLXXIX. 
TO MR THOMSON. 

20th March 1793. 

My dear Sir, — The song prefixed (Mary Morison) is one of 
my juvenile works. I leave it in your hands. I do not think it 
very remarkable, either for its merits or demerits. It is impos- 
sible — at least I feel it so in my stinted powers — to be always 
original, entertaining, and witty. 

What is become of the list, &c., of your songs ? I shall be out 
of all temper with you by and by. I have always looked on my- 
self as the prince of indolent correspondents, and valued myself 
accordingly : and I will not, cannot, bear rivalship from you nor 
anybody else. R. B. 



CCLXXX. 
TO MISS BENSON. 

Dumfries, 21st March 1793. 

Madam,— Among many things for which I envy those hale, 
long-lived oid fellows before the Flood, is this, in particular 
—that when they met with anybody after their own heart, they 
had a charming long prospect of many, many happy meetings 
with them in after-life. 

Now, in this short, stormy winter-day of our fleeting existence, 
when you, now and then, in the chapter of accidents, meet an 
individual whose acquaintance's a real acquisition, there are all 
the probabilities against you that you shall never meet with that 
valued character more. On the other hand, brief as thi3 miserable 
being is, it is none of the least of the miseries belonging to it, 
that if there is any miscreant whom you hate, or creature whom 
you despise, the ill run of the chances shall be so against you, 
that in the overtakings, turnings, and jostlings of life, pop, at 
some unlucky corner, eternally comes the wretch upon you, and 
will not allow your indignation or contempt a moment's repose. 
As I am a sturdy believer in the powers of darkness, I take these 
to be the doings of that old author of mischief, the Devil. It is 
well known that he has some kind of short-hand way of taking 
down our thoughts ; and I make no doubt that he is perfectly 
acquainted with my sentiments respecting Miss Benson : how 
much I admired her abilities and valued her worth, and how 
very fortunate I thought myself in her acquaintance. For this 
last reason, my dear madam, I must entertain no hopes of the 
very great pleasure of meeting with you again. 

Miss Hamilton tells me that she is sending a packet to you, 



BURNS LETTERS. £77 



and I beg leave to send you the enclosed sonnet ; though, to tell 
you the real truth, the sonnet is a mere pretence, that I may hare 
the opportunity of declaring with how much respectful esteem I 
have the honour to be, &c. R. B. 



CCLXXXI. 
TO THE HON. THE PROVOST, BAILIES, AND TOWN- 
COUNCIL OF DUMFRIES. 

Gentlemen, — The literary taste and liberal spirit of your 
good town has so ably filled the various departments of your 
schools, as to make it a very great object for a parent to have Ms 
children educated in them. Still to me, a stranger, to give my 
young ones that education I wish, at the high school-fees which 
a stranger pays, will bear hard upon me. 

Some years ago, your good town did me the honour of making 
me an honorary burgess. Will you allow me to request that this 
mark of distinction may extend so far as to put me on the footing 
of a real freeman of the town in the schools ? 

If you are so very kind as to grant my request, it will certainly 
be a constant incentive to me to strain every nerve where I can 
officially serve you, and will, if possible, increase that grateful 
respect with which I have the honour to be, gentlemen, &c. 

R. B. 



CCLXXXII. 
TO PATRICK MILLER, ESQ., OF DALSWINTON. 

Dumfries, April 1793. 

Sir, — My Poems, 'ji^ine lust come out in another edition, will 
you do me the honour to accept of a copy i — a marK of my grati- 
tude to you, as a gentleman to whose goodness I have been much 
indebted ; of my respect for you, as a patriot who, in a venal, slid- 
ing age, stands forth the champion of the liberties of my country ; 
and of my veneration for you, as a man whose benevolence of 
heart does honour to human nature. 

There iuas a time, sir, when I was your dependent : this lan- 
guage then would have been like the vile incense of flattery — I 
could not have used it. Now that that connection is at an end, 
do me the honour to accept of this honest tribute of respect from, 
sir, your much indebted humble servant, R. B, 



M8 



BURNS' letters. 



CCLXXXIII. 

TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ., DRUMLANRIG- 

Dumfries. 1793. 
Will Mr M'Murdo do me the favour to accept of these volumes? 
—a trifling but sincere mark of the very high respect I bear for his 
worth as a man, his manners as a gentleman, and his kindness as 
a friend. However inferior now, or afterwards, I may rank as a 
poet, one honest virtue to which few poets can pretend, I trust I 
shall ever claim as mine — to no man, whatever his station in life, 
or his power to serve me, have I ever paid a compliment at the 
expense of truth. The Author. 



CCL XXXIV 
TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 

My Lord, — When you cast your eye on the name at the bottom 
of this letter, and on the title-page of the book I do myself the 
honour to send your lordship, a more pleasurable feeling than my 
vanity tells me that it must be a name not entirely unknown to 
you. The generous patronage of your late illustrious brother 
found me in the lowest obscurity. He introduced my rustic Muse 
to the partiality of my country ; and to him I owe all. My sense 
of his goodness, and the anguish of my soul at losing my truly 
noble protector and friend, I have endeavoured to express in a 
poem to his memory, which I have now published. This edition 
is just from the press ; and in my gratitude to the dead, and my 
respect for the living (fame belies you, my lord, if you possess not 
the same dignity of man, which was your noble brother's charac- 
teristic feature), I had destined a copy for the Earl of Glencairn. 
I learnt just now that you are in town : allow me to present it 
you. 

I know, my lord, such is the vile, venal contagion which per- 
vades the world of letters, that professions of respect from an 
author, particularly from a poet to a lord, are more than suspi- 
cious. I claim my by-past conduct, and my feelings at this mo- 
ment, as exceptions to the too just conclusion. Exalted as are the 
honours of your lordship's name, and unnoted as is the obscurity 
of mine, with the uprightness of an honest maj, I come before your 
lordship, with an offering — however humble, 'tis all I have to give 
—of my grateful respect ; and to beg of you, my lord, — 'tis all I 
have to ask of you, — that you will do me the honour to accept of 
it I have the honour to be, R. B. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 570 



CCLXXXV. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

7th April 179S. 

Thank you, lny dear sir, for your packet. You cannot imagine 
bow much this business of composing for your publication bag 
added to my enjoyments. What with my early attachment to 
ballads, your book, &c, ballad-making is now as completely my 
hobby-horse as ever fortification was Uncle Toby's ; so 111 e'en 
canter it away till I come to the limit of my race (God grant that 
I may take the right side of the winning-post !), and then cheer- 
fully looking back on the honest folks with whom I have been 
happy, I shall say or sing, Sae Merry as ive a* hoe been / and rais- 
ing my last looks to the whole human race, the last words of the 
voice of Coila shall be, Good-night, and py be wV you a' / So 
much for my last words ; now for a few present remarks, as they 
have occurred at random, on looking over your list. 

The first lines of The Last Time I came o'er the Moor, and 
several other lines in it, are beautiful ; but, in my opinion — par- 
don me, revered shade of Ramsay ! — the song is unworthy of the 
divine air. I shall try to make or mend. For ever, Fortune, wilt 
thou prove, is a charming song ; but Logan Burn and Logan Braes, 
is sweetly susceptible of rural imagery. I'll try that likewise, 
and if I succeed, the other song may class among the English 
ones. I remember the two last lines of a verse in some of the old 
songs of Logan Water — for I know a good many different ones — 
which I think pretty : — 

" Now my dear lad maun face his faes, 
Far, far frae me and Logan braes." 

My Patie is a Lover gay, is unequal " His mind is never 
muddy," is a muddy expression indeed. 

11 Then I'll resign and marry Pate, 
And syne my cockernony." — 

This is surely far unworthy of Ramsay, or your book. My song, 
Rigs of Barley, to the same tune, does not altogether please me ; 
but if I can mend it, and thrash a few loose sentiments out of it, 
I will submit it to your consideration. The Lass o f Patie' s Mill, is 
one of Ramsay's best songs ; but there is one loose sentiment in 
it, which my much-valued friend Mr Erskine will take into his 
critical consideration. In Sir John Sinclair's statistical volume? 
are two claims — one, I think, from Aberdeenshire, and the other 
from Ayrshire— for the honour of this song. The following anec- 
dote, which I had from the present Sir William Cunningham of 
Robertland, who had it of the late John, Earl of Loudon, I can, 
on such authorities, believe i— 



2o 



580 BUENS LETTEES. 



Allan Ramsay was residing at Loudon Castle with the then 
Earl, father to Earl John ; and one forenoon, riding or walking 
out together, his lordship and Allan passed a sweet, romantic spot 
on Irvine Water, still called Patie's Mill, where a bonnie lass was 
" tedding hay, bareheaded, on the green." My lord observed to 
Allan that it would be a fine theme for a song. Ramsay took the 
hint, and, lingering behind, he composed the first sketch of it, 
which he produced at dinner. 

One Day I heard Mary say, is a fine song ; but, for consistency's 
sake, alter tho name Adonis. Were there ever such banns pub- 
lished as a purpose of marriage between Adonis and Mary ! I 
agree with you that my song, There's nought but Care on every 
Hand, is much superior to Puirtith Cauld. The original song, The 
Mill, Mill O ! though excellent, is, on account of delicacy, inad- 
missible ; stiil I like the title, and think a Scottish song would 
suit the notes best ; and let your chosen song, which is very pretty 
follow as an English set. The Banks of the Bee is, you know, 
literally Langolee, to slow time. The song is well enough, but has 
some false imagery in it : for instance, 

" And sweetly the nightingale sang from the tree." 

In the first place, the nightingale sings in a low bush, but never 
from a tree; and, in the second place, there never was a nightin- 
gale seen or heard on the banks of the Dee, or on the banks of any 
other river in Scotland. Exotic rural imagery is always com- 
paratively flat. If I could hit on another stanza, equal to " The 
small birds rejoice," &c, I do myself honestly avow that I think it 
a superior song. John Anderson, my Jo — the song to this tune in 
Johnson's Museum is my composition, and I think it not my worst ; 
if it suit you, take it, and welcome. Your collection of sentimen- 
tal and pathetic songs is, in my opinion, very complete ; but not 
so your comic ones. Where are Tullochgorum, Lumps o* Puddin, 
Tibbie Fowler, and siveral others, which, in my humble judgment, 
are well worthy of preservation ? There is also one sentimental 
song of mine in the Museum, which never was known out of the 
immediate neighbourhood, until I got it taken down from a coun- 
try girl's singing. It is called Cragieburn Wood, and, in the 
opinion of Mr Clarke, is one of the sweetest Scottish songs. He 
is quite an enthusiast about it ; and I would take his taste in 
Scottish music against the taste of most connoisseurs. 

You are quite right in inserting the last five in your list, though 
they are certainly Irish. Shepherds, T have lost my Love t is to 
me a heavenly air — what would you think of a set of Scottish 
verses to it ? I have made one to it, a good while ago, which I 
think * * *, but in its original state it is not quite a lady's song. 
I enclose an altered, not amended, copy for you, if you choose of 
set the tune to it, and let the Irish verses follow. 



BURNS LETTERS. 8bl 



Mr Erskine's songs aro all pretty, but his Lone Vale is dirine. 
Yours, &c. 
Let me know just how you like these random hints. R. B. 



CCLXXXVI. 

TO JOHN FRANCIS ERSKINE, ESQ., OF MAR. 

Dumfries, IZth April 17 93. 

Sir, — Degenerate as human nature is said to be, — and, in many 
instances, worthless and unprincipled it is, — still there are bright 
examples to the contrary ; examples that, even in the eyes of 
superior beings, must shed a lustre on the name of man. 

Such an example have I now before me, when you, sir, came 
forward to patronize and befriend a distant obscure stranger, 
merely because poverty had made him helpless, and his British 
hardihood of .mind had provoked the arbitrary wantonness of 
power. My much esteemed friend, Mr Riddle of Glenriddel, has 
just read me a paragraph of a letter he had from you. Accept, 
sir, of the silent throb of gratitude ; for words would but mock the 
emotions of my soul. 

You have been misinformed as to my final dismission from the 
Excise ; I am still in the service. Indeed, but for the exertions 
of a gentleman who must be known to you, Mr Graham of Fintry, 
— a gentleman who has ever been my warm and generous friend, 
— I had, without so much as a hearing, or the slightest previous 
intimation, been turned adrift with my helpless family to all the 
horrors of want. Had I had any other resource, probably I might 
have saved them the trouble of a dismission ; but the little money 
I gained by my publication is, almost every guinea, embarked to 
save from ruin an only brother, who, though one of the worthiest, 
is by no means one of the most fortunate of men. 

In my defence to their accusations I said, that whatever might 
be my sentiments of republics, ancient or modern, as to Britain I 
abjured the idea — that a constitution which, in its original 
principles, experience had proved to be every way fitted for our 
happiness in society, it would be insanity to sacrifice to an untried 
visionary theory ; that, in consideration of my being situated in 
a department, however humble, immediately in the hands of peo- 
ple in power, I had forborne taking any active part, either per- 
sonally or as an author, in the present business of reform ; but 
that, where I must declare my sentiments, I would say there ex- 
isted a system of corruption between the executive power and the 
representative part of the legislature, which boded no good to our 
glorious constitution, and which every patriotic Briton must 
wish to see amended. Some such sentiments as these I stated h) 



582 BURNS' LETTER?. 



a letter to iny generous patron, Mr Graham, which he laid before 
the Board at large, where, it seems, my last remark gave great 
offence ; and one of our supervisors-general, a Mr Corbet, was 
instructed to inquire on the spot, and to document me-— that my 
business was to act, not to think ; and that, whatever might be 
men or measures, it was for me to be silent and obedient. 

Mr Corbet was likewise my steady friend; so between Mr 
Graham and him I have been partly forgiven : only I understand 
that all hope? of my getting officially forward are blasted. 

Now, sir, to the business in which I would more immediately 
interest you. The partiality of my countrymen- has brought 
me forward as a man of genius, and has given me a character to 
support. In the poet I have avowed manly and independent 
sentiments, which I trust will be found in the man. Reasons of 
no less weight than the support of a wife and family, have pointed 
out as the eligible, and, situated as I was, the only eligible line of 
life for me, my present occupation. Still my honest fame is my 
dearest concern ; and a thousand times have I trembled at the 
idea of those degrading epithets that malice or misrepresentation 
may affix to my name. I have often, in blasting anticipation, 
listened to some future hackney scribbler, with the heavy malice 
of savage stupidity, exulting in his hireling paragraphs — " Burns, 
notwithstanding the fanfaronade of independence to be found in 
his works, and after having been held forth to public view and to 
public estimation as a man of some genius, yet, quite destitute of 
resources within himself to support his borrowed dignity, he 
dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and slunk out the rest of his 
insignificant existence in the meanest of pursuits, and among the 
vilest of mankind." 

In your illustrious hands, sir, permit me to lodge my disavowal 
and defiance of these slanderous falsehoods. Burns was a poor 
man from birth, and an exciseman by necessity ; but — / will say 
it — the sterling of his honest worth no poverty could debase, and 
his independent British mind oppression might bend, but could 
not subdue. Have not I, to me, a more precious stake in my 
country's welfare than the richest dukedom in it ? I have a large 
family of children, and the prospect of many more. I have three 
sons, who, I see already, have brought into the world souls ill 
qualified to inhabit the bodies of slaves. Can I look tamely on, 
and see any machination to wrest from them the birthright of my 
boys— the little independent Britons, in whose veins runs my 
own blood ? No 1 I will not, should my heart's blood stream 
around my attempt to defend it ! 

Does any man tell me, that my full efforts can be of no service, 
and that it does not belong to my humble station to meddle with 
the concern of a nation? 

I can tell him that it is on such individuals as I that a nation 



BURNS* LETTERS. 583 



has to rest, both for the hand ot support and the eye of intelli- 
gence. The uninformed MOB may swell a nation's bulk ; and the 
titled, tinsel, courtly throng n:ay be its feathered ornament ; but 
the number of those who are elevated enough in life to reason and 
to reflect, yet low enough to keep clear of the venal contagion of 
a court — these are a nation's strength I 

I know not how to apologize for the impertinent length of this 
epistle; but one small request I must ask of you farther — When 
you have honoured this letter with a perusal, please to commit it 
to the flames. Burns, in whose behalf you have so generously 
interested yourself, I have here, in his native colours, drawn as he 
is ; but should any of the people in whose hands is the very bread 
he eats get the least knowledge of the picture, it would ruin the 
poor BARD for ever* 

My poems having just come out in another edition, I beg leave 
to present you with a copy, as a small mark of that high esteem 
and ardent gratitude with which I have the honour to be, sir, your 
deeply-indebted, and ever-devoted humble servant, R. B. 



CCLXXXVII. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

April 17S3. 
I have yours, my dear sir, this moment. I shall answer it and 
your former letter, in my desultory way of saying whatever comes 
uppermost. 

The business of many of our tunes wanting at the beginning 
what fiddlers call a starting-note, is often a rub to us poor rhymers. 

u There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, 
That wander through the blooming heather." 

you may alter to 

" Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, 
Ye wander," &c. 

My song, Here awa, there awa, as amended by Mr Erskine, I 
entirely approve of, and return you. 

Give me leave to criticise your taste in the only thing in which 
it is, in my opinion, reprehensible. You know I ought to know 
something of my own trade. Of pathos, sentiment, and point you 
are a complete judge ; but there is a quality more necessary than 
either in a song, and which is the very essence of a ballad — I 
mean simplicity. Now, if I mistake not, this last feature you are 
a little apt to sacrifice to the foregoing. 

Ramsay, as every other poet, has not been always equally happy 
in his pieces ; still I cannot approve of taking such liberties with 
fen author as Mr Walker proposes doing with The Last Time 1 cams 



584 BURNS' LETTERS. 



o'er the Moor. Let a poet, if he chooses, take up the idea of 
another, and work it into a piece of his own ; but to mangle the 
works of the poor bard whose tuneful tongue is now mute for ever 
in the dark and narrow house — 'twould be sacrilege ! I grant that 
Mr Walker's version is an improvement ; but I know Mr Walker 
well, and esteem him much ; let him mend the song, as the High- 
lander mended his gun — he gave it a new stock, a new lock, and a 
new barrel. 

I do not by this object to leaving out improper stanzas, where 
that can be done without spoiling the whole. One stanza in The 
Lass o' Patie's Mill must be left out : the song will be nothing 
worse for it. I am not sure if we can take the same liberty with 
Corn-rigs are Bonnie. Perhaps it might want the last stanza, and 
be the better for it. Cauld Kail in Aberdeen you must leave with 
me yet awhile. I have vowed to have a song to that air on the 
lady whom I attempted to celebrate in the verses Puirtith Cauld 
and Restless Love. At any rate, my other song, Green grow the 
Rashes, will never suit. That song is current in Scotland under 
the old title, and to the merry old tune of that name, which of 
course would mar the progress of your *ong to celebrity. Your 
book will be the standard of Scots songs for the future : let this 
idea ever keep your judgment on the alarm. 

I send a song on a celebrated toast in this country to suit Bonnie 
Dundee. I send you also a ballad to The Mitt, Mill ! 

The Last Time 1 came o'er the Moor, I would fain attempt to 
make a Scots song for, and let Ramsay's be the English set. You 
shall hear from me soon. When you go to London on this business 
can you come by Dumfries ? I have still several MS. Scots airs 
by me, which I have picked up mostly from the singing of country 
lasses. They please me vastly ; but your learned lugs (ears) would 
perhaps be displeased with the very feature for which I like them. 
I call them simple; you would pronounce them silly. Do you 
know a fine air called Jackie Hume's Lament? I have a song of 
considerable merit to that air. I'll enclose you both the song and 
tune, as I had them ready to send to Johnsons Museum. I send 
you likewise, to me, a beautiful little air, which I had taken down 
from viva voce. Adieu. R. B. 



CCLXXXVIII. 
TO MR ROBERT ALNSLIE, 

ST JAMES'S STREET, EDINBURGH. 

_ April 26, 1793. 
I AM out of humour, my dear Ainslie, and this is the reason 
why I take up the pen to you : 'tis the nearest way (probatum est) 
to recover my spirits again. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 



I received your last, and was much entertained with it ; but I 
will not at this time, nor at any other time, answer it. Answer a 
letter ! — I never could answer a letter in my life. I have written 
many a letter in return for letters I have received ; but then, 
they were original matter — spurt-away ! zig here, zag there ; as 
if the devil, that my grannie (an old woman indeed!) often told 
me, rode on "Will-o'-Wisp, or, in her more classic phrase, Spunkie, 
were looking over my elbow. A happy thought that idea has 
engendered in my head ! Spunkie, thou shalt henceforth be my 
Symbol, Signature, and Tutelary Genius ! Like thee, hap-step* 
and-loup, here-awa-there-awa. higglety-pigglety, pell-mell, hither- 
and-yont, ram-stam, happy-go-lucky, up tails-a'-by-the-light-o'- 
the-moon — has been, is, and shall be, my progress through the 
mosses and moors of this vile, bleak, barren wilderness of a life of 
ours. 

Come, then, my guardian spirit! like thee, may I* skip away, 
amusing myself by and at my own light ; and if any opaque- 
souled lubber of mankind complain that my elnne, lambent, glim- 
merous wanderings have misled his stupid steps over precipices or 
into bogs, let the thick-headed blunderbuss recollect that he is not 
Spunkie :— that 

" Spcxkie's wanderings could not copied be; 
Amid these perils none durst walk but he." 

I feel vastly better. I give you joy. ... I have no doubt but 
scholarcraft may be caught by friction. How else can you account 
for it, that born blockheads, by mere dint of handling books, grow 
so wise that even they themselves are equally convinced of and 
surprised at their own parts ? I once carried this philosophy to 
that degree, that in a knot of country folks who had a library 
amongst them, and who, to the honour of their good sense, made 
me factotum in the business ; one of our members, a little, wise- 
looking, squat, upright, jabbering body of a tailor, I advised him, 
instead of turning over the leaves, to bind the book on Ms bade. 
Johnnie took the hint, and as our meetings were every fourth 
Saturday, and Pricklouse having a good Scots mile to walk in 
coming, and of course another in returning, Bodkin was sure to 
lay his hand on some heavy quarto or ponderous folio, with, and 
under which, wrapt up in his gray plaid, he grew wise as he grew 
weary, all the way home. He carried this so far. that an old musty 
Hebrew concordance, which we had in a present from a neigh- 
bouring priest, by mere dint of applying it, as doctors do a blister- 
ing plaster, between his shoulders, Stitch, in a dozen pilgrimages, 
acquired as much rational theology as the said priest had done 
by forty years' perusal of the pages. 

Tell me, and tell me truly, what you think of this theory. Yours, 

Spunkie. 



He EURNS' LETTERS. 



CCXXX. 

TO MRS GRAHAM OF F1NTRY. 

Ellisland, February 1791. 
Madam, — "Whether it is that the story of our Mary Queen of 
Scots has a peculiar effect on the feelings of a poet, or whether I 
have in the enclosed ballad (p. 165) succeeded beyond my usual 
poetic success, I know not, but it has pleased me beyond any 
effort of my Muse for a good while past ; on that account I en- 
close it particularly to you. It is true the purity of my motives 
may be suspected. I am already deeply indebted to Mr Graham's 
goodness ; and what, in the usual ivays of men, is of infinitely 
greater importance, Mr G. can do me service of the utmost im- 
portance in time to come. I was born a poor dog ; and however 
I may occasionally pick a better bone than I used to do, I know 
I must live and die poor : but I will indulge the flattering faith 
that my poetry will considerably outlive my poverty ; and without 
any fustian affectation of spirit, I can promise and affirm that it 
must be no ordinary craving of the latter shall ever make me do 
anything injurious to the honest fame of the former. "Whatever 
may be my failings — for failings are a part of human nature — 
may they ever be those of a generous heart and an independent 
mind ! It is no fault of mine that I was born to dependence, nor 
is it Mr Graham's chiefest praise that he can command influence : 
but it is his merit to bestow, not only with the kindness of a 
brother, but with the politeness of a gentleman, and I trust it shall 
be mine to receive with thankfulness, and remember with undi- 
minished gratitude. R. B. 



CCXXXI. 

TO DR MOORE. 

Ellisland, 28th February 1791. 
I DO not know, sir, whether you are a subscriber to Grose's 
Antiquities of Scotland, If you are, the enclosed poem will not 
be altogether new to you. Captain Grose did me the favour to 
send me a dozen copies of the proof-sheet, of which this is one. 
Should you have read the piece before, still this will answer the 
principal end I have in view — it will give me another opportunity 
of thanking you for all your goodness to the rustic bard, and 
also of shewing you that the abilities you have been pleased to 
commend and patronise are still employed in the way you wish. 
: The Elegy on Captain Henderson is a tribute to the memory of 
a man I loved much. Poets have in this the same advantage as 
Hainan Catholics ; they can be of service to their friends after 



burns' letters. 5S7 



CCXCI. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

2d July 1793. 

My dear Sir,-— I have just finished the following ballad (p t 
269), and, as I do think it in my best style, I send it you. 
Mr Clarke, who wrote down the air from Mrs Burns's " wood-note 
wild," is very fond of it, and has given it a celebrity by teaching 
it to some young ladies of the first fashion here. If you do not 
like the air enough to give it a place in your collection, please 
return it. The song you may keep, as I remember it. 

I have some thoughts of inserting in your index, or in my 
notes, the names of the fair ones, the themes of my songs. I do 
not mean the name at full, but dashes or asterisms, so as ingenuity 
may find them out. 

The heroine of the foregoing is Miss M'Murdo, daughter to 
Mr M'Murdo of Drumlanrig, one of your subscribers. I have 
not painted her in the rank which she holds in life, but in the 
dress and character of a cottager. R. B. 



CCXCII. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

July 1793. 

I assure you, my dear sir, that you truly hurt me with your 
pecuniary parcel. It degrades me in my own eyes. Hojvever, to 
return it would savour cf affectation ; but as to any more traffic 
of that debtor and creditor kind, 1 swear, by that Honour which 
erowns the upright statue of Robert Burns's Integrity — on 
the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the bypast trans- 
action, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you! 
Burns's character for generosity of sentiment and independence 
of mind will, I trust, long outlive any of his wants which the cold, 
unfeeling ore can supply ; at least I will take care that such a 
character he shall deserve. 

Thank you for my copy of your publication. Never did my 
eyes behold in any musical work such elegance and correctness. 
Your preface, too, is admirably written ; only your partiality to 
me has made you say too much : however, it will bind me down 
to double every effort in the future progress of the work. The 
following are a few remarks on the songs in the list you sent me. 
I never copy what I write to you, so I may be often tautological, 
or perhaps contradictory. 

TJie Flowers o' the Forest is charming as a poem, and should be, 



588 BURNS' LETTERS. 



and must be, set to the notes ; but, though out of your rule, tha 
three stanzas beginning, 

11 1 hae seen the smiling o' fortune beguiling," 

are worthy of a place, were it but to immortalise the author of 
them, who is an old lady of my acquaintance, and at this moment 
living in Edinburgh. She is a Mrs Cockburn, I forget of what 
place, but from Roxburghshire. What a charming apostrophe 
is — 

14 O fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting, 
Why, why torment us, poor sons of a day!'* 

The old ballad, / wish I were where Helen lies, is silly, to con- 
temptibility. My alteration of it, in Johnson, is not much better. 
Mr Pinkerton, in his, what he calls, ancient ballads — many of 
them notorious, though beautiful enough, forgeries — has the best 
set. It is full of his own interpolations — but no matter. 

In my next I will suggest to your consideration a few songs 
which may have escaped your hurried notice. In the meantime, 
allow me to congratulate you now as a brother of the quill. You 
have committed your character and fame, which will now be 
tried, for ages to come, by the illustrious jury of the Sons and 
Daughters of Taste — all whom poesy can please, or music 
charm. 

Being a bard of nature, I have some pretensions to second- 
sight ; and I am warranted by the spirit to foretell and affirm, 
that your great-grandchild will hold up your volumes, and say, 
with honest pride — " This so-much-admired selection was the 
work of my ancestor !" R. B 



CCXCIII. 
TO MISS CRAIK. 

Dumfries, August 1793. 

Madam, — Some rather unlooked-for accidents have prevented 
my doing myself the honour of a second visit to Arbigland, as I 
was so hospitably invited, and so positively meant to have done. 
However, I still hope to have that pleasure before the busy months 
of harvest begin. 

I enclose you two of my late pieces, as some kind of return for 
the pleasure I have received in perusing a certain MS. volume of 
poems in the possession of Captain Riddel. To repay one with an 
old song is a proverb whose force you, madam, I know, will not 
allow. What is said of illustrious descent is, I believe, equally 
true of a talent for poetry — none ever despised it who had pre- 
tensions to it. The fates and characters of the rhyming tribe often 
employ my thoughts when I am disposed to be melancholy. 
There is not, among all the martyrologies that ever were penned, 



BURNS' LETTERS. 589 



so rueful a narrative as the lives of the poets. In the compara- 
tive view of wretches, the criterion is not what they are doomed 
to suffer, but how they are formed to bear. Take a being of our 
kind, give him a stronger imagination and a more delicate sensi- 
bility, which between them will ever engender a more ungovern- 
able set of passions than are the usual lot of man ; implant in him 
an irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, such as arranging 
wild-flowers in fantastical nosegays, tracing the grasshopper to 
his haunt by his chirping song, watching the frisks of the little 
minnows in the sunny pool, or hunting after the intrigues of but- 
terflies — in short, send him adrift after some pursuit which shall 
eternally mislead him from the paths of lucre, and yet curse him 
with a keener relish than any man living for the pleasures that 
lucre can purchase ; lastly, fill up the measure of his woes by 
bestowing on him a spurning sense of his own dignity — and you 
have created a wight nearly as miserable as a poet. To you, 
madam, I need not recount the fairy pleasures the Muse bestows, 
to counterbalance this catalogue of evils. Bewitching poetry 13 
like bewitching woman. She has in all ages been accused of mis- 
leading mankind from the councils of wisdom and the paths of 
prudence, involving them in difficulties, baiting them with po- 
verty, branding them with infamy, and plunging them in the 
whirling vortex of ruin ; yet where is the man but must own 
that all our happiness on earth is not worthy the name — that 
even the holy hermit's solitary prospect of paradisiacal bliss is but 
the glitter of a northern sun rising over a frozen region— com- 
pared with the many pleasures, the nameless raptures, that we 
owe to the lovely queen of the heart of man ! R. B. 



CCXCIV. 
TO MR THOMSON. 

August 1793. 

You may readily trust, my dear sir, that any exertion in my 
power is heartily at your service. But one thing I must hint to 
you — the very name of Peter Pindar is of great service to your 
publication ; so get a verse from him now and then, though I have 
no objection, as well as I can, to bear the burden of the business. 

Is Whistle, and Til come, to you, my Lad, one of your airs ? I 
admire it much, and yesterday I set the following verses to it, 
(p. 271). Urbani, whom I have met with here, begged them of 
me, as he admires the air much ; but as I understand that he looks 
with rather an evil eye on your work, I did not choose to comply. 
However, if the song does not suit your taste, I may possibly send 
it him. He is, entre nous, a narrow, contracted creature but he 
iings so delightfully, that whatever he introduces at your concert 



•SO fijJRNS' LETTERS. 



must have immediate celebrity. The set of the air which I had 
in my eye is in Johnson's Museum. Another favourite air of mine 
is The Mucking o' Geordie*s Byre. When sung slow with expres- 
sion, I have wished that it had had better poetry : that I have 
endeavoured to supply as follows (p. 272). 

Mr Clarke begs you to give Miss Phillis a corner in your book, 
as she is a particular name of his. She is a Miss Phillis M'Murdo, 
sister to " Bonnie Jean." They are both pupils of his. You shall 
hear from me the very first grist I get from my rhyming-mill. 

R. B. 



CCXCV. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

[28th] August 1793. 

That tune, CauldKail, is such a favourite of yours, that I once 
more roved out yesterday for a gloamin-shot (twilight) at the 
Muses ; when the Muse that presides o'er the shores of Nith, or 
rather my old inspiring dearest Nymph, Coila, whispered me the 
following (Come let me, p. 273). I have two reasons for thinking 
that it was my early, sweet, simple inspirer that was by my elbow, 
(< smooth gliding without step," and pouring the song on my glow- 
ing fancy. In the first place, since I left Coila's native haunts, not 
a fragment of a poet has arisen to cheer her solitary musings, by 
catching inspiration from her, so I more than suspect that she has 
followed me hither, or at least makes me occasional visits ; secondly, 
the last stanza of this song I send you is the very words that 
Coila taught me many years ago, and which I set to an old Scots 
reel in Johnson's Museum. 

If you think the above will suit your idea of your favourite 
air, I shall be highly pleased. The last Time I came o'er the Moor, 
I cannot meddle with as to mending it ; and the musical world 
have been so long accustomed to Ramsay's words, that a different 
song, though positively superior, would not be so well received. 
I am not fond of choruses to songs, so I have not made one for 
the foregoing. R. B. 



CCXCVI. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

Sept. 1793. 

You know that my pretensions to musical taste are merely a 

few of nature's instincts, untaught and untutored by art. For 

this reason many musical compositions, particularly where much 

of the merit lies in counterpoint, however they may transport and 



BURNS' LETTERS. 691 



ravish the ears of you connoisseurs, affect my simple lug no other- 
wise than merely as melodious din. On the other hand, by way 
of amends, I am delighted with many little melodies, which the 
learned musician despises as silly and insipid. I do not know 
whether the old air, Hey, tuttie taitie, may rank among this 
number ; but well I know that, with Fraser's hautboy, it has 
often filled my eyes with tears. There is a tradition which I have 
met with in many places in Scotland, that it was Robert Bruce's 
march at the battle of Bannockburn. This thought, in my yester- 
night's evening walk, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the 
theme of liberty and independence, which I threw into a kind of 
Scottish ode (p. 273). fitted to the air. that one might suppose to 
be the gallant royal Scot's address to his heroic followers on that 
eventful morning. 

So may God ever defend the cause of truth and liberty, as He 
did that day ! Amen. 

PJS. — I showed the air to Urbani, who was highly pleased with 
it, and begged me to make soft verses for it ; but I had no idea of 
giving myself any trouble on the subject, till the accidental recol- 
lection of that glorious struggle for freedom, associated with the 
glowing ideas of some other struggles of the same nature, not quite 
90 ancient, roused my rhyming mania. Clarke's set of the tune, 
with his bass, you will find in the Museum, though I am afraid 
that the air is not what will entitle it to a place in your elegant 
selection* R. B. 



CCXCTII. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

[Sept. 1793.] 
I daresay, my dear sir, that you will begin to think my corre- 
spondence is persecution. Xo matter, I can't help it : a ballad is 
my hobby-horse, which, though otherwise a simple sort of harm- 
less idiotical beast enough, has yet this blessed headstrong pro- 
perty, that when once it has fairly made off with a hapless wight, 
ic gets so enamoured with the tinkle-gingle, tinkle-gingle of its 
own bells, that it is sure to run poor Pilgarlick, the bedlam jockey, 
quite beyond any useful point or post in the common race of men. 
e following song (Behold the Hour, p. 274) I have composed 
for Oran Gaoil, the Highland air that you tell me in your last you 
have resolved to give a place to in your book. I have this moment 
finished the song, so you hare it glowing from the mint. If it 
rait you. well ! — if not, ''tis also well I R, B, 



•»a burns' letters. 



CCXCVIII. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

Sept. 1793. 

I HAVE received your list, my dear sir, and here go my obser* 
vations on it. 

Down the Burn, Davie — I have this moment tried an alteration, 
leaving out the last half of the third stanza, and the first half of 
the last stanza ; thus (p. 274). 

Through the Wood, Laddie — I am decidedly of opinion that both 
in this, and There' II. never be Peace till Jamie comes Hame, the second 
or high part of the tune beirig a repetition of the first part an 
octave higher, is only for instrumental music, and would be much 
better omitted in singing. 

Cowden-knowes — Remember in your index, that the song in pure 
English to this tune, beginning — 

" When summer comes, the swains on Tweed," 

is the production of Crawford. Robert was his Christian name. 

Laddie be near me, must lie by me for some time. I do not 
know the air ; and until I am complete master of a tune, in my 
own singing (such as it is), I can never compose for it. My way 
is — I consider the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of 
the musical expression ; then choose my theme ; begin one stanza : 
when that is composed, which is generally the most difficult part 
of the business, I walk out, sit down now and then, look out fof 
objects in nature around me that are in unison and harmony with 
the cogitations of my fancy, and workings of my bosom ; humming 
every now and then the air with the verses I have framed. When 
I feel my Muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside 
of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper ; swinging 
at intervals on the hind-legs of my elbow-chair, by way of calling 
forth my own critical strictures as my pen goes on. Seriously, 
this, at home, is almost invariably my way. 

What egotism ! 

Gill Morice I am for leaving out. It is a plaguy length ; the 
air itself is never sung ; and its place can well be supplied by 
one or two songs for fine airs that are not in your list— for in- 
stance, Craigieburn Wood, and Roy's Wife, The first, beside its 
intrinsic merit } has novelty ; and the last has high merit, as well 
as great celebrity. I have the original words of a song for the 
last air, in the handwriting of the lady who composed it ; and 
they are superior to any edition of the song which the public has 
yet seen. 

Highland Laddie — The old set will please a mere Scotch ear 
best ; and the new one an Italianized one. There is a third, and 
what Oswald calls the old Highland Laddie, which pleases me 



BURNS' LETTERS. 592 



more than either of them. It is sometimes called Ginglin Johnnie 
^•it being the air of an old humorous tawdry song of that name. 
You will find it in the Museum — / hae been at Crookieden, &c. I 
would advise you, in this musical quandary, to offer up your 
prayers to the Muses for inspiring direction ; and in the mean- 
time, waiting for this direction, bestow a libation to Bacchus; 
and there is not a doubt but you will hit on a judicious choice, 
Probatum est, 

Auld SirSimonlmust beg you to leave out, and put in its place 
Th& Quaker's Wife. 

Blithe hae I been o'er the Hill is one of the finest songs ever 1 
made in my life, and, besides, is composed on a young lady, posi- 
tively the most beautiful, lovely woman in the world. As I pur- 
pose giving you the names and designations of all my heroines, t« 
appear in some future edition of your work, perhaps half a cen- 
tury hence, you must certainly include The Bonniest Ldss in a' the 
Warld in your collection. 

Dainty Davie I have heard sung nineteen' thousand nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine times, and always with the chorus to the 
low part of the tune ; and nothing has surprised me so much as 
your opinion on this subject. If it will not suit as I proposed, 
we will lay two of the stanzas together, and then make the chorus 
follow. 

Fee him, Father — I enclose you Fraser's set of this tune when 
he plays it slow ; in fact, he makes it the language of despair. I 
shall here give you two stanzas, in that style, merely to try if it 
will be any improvement. Were it possible, in singing, to give it 
half the pathos which Fraser gives it in playing, it would make 
an admirably pathetic song. I do not give these verses (p. 274) 
for any merit they have. I composed them at the time in which 
" Patie Allan's mither died — that was about the back o' midnight," 
and by the lee-side of a bowl of punch, which had overset every 
mortal in company except the hautboys and the Muse. 

Jockie and Jenny I would discard, and in its place would put 
There's nae Luck about the House, which has a very pleasant air, 
and which is positively the finest love-ballad in that style in the 
Scottish, or perhaps in any other language. When she came ben 
she bobbit, as an air, is more beautiful than either, and in the 
andante way would unite with a charming sentimental ballad. 

Saw ye my Father ? is one of my greatest favourites. The 
evening before last, I wandered out, and began a tender song, in 
what I think is its native style. I must premise, that the old way, 
and the way to give most effect, is to have no starting-note, as the 
fiddlers call it, but to burst at once into the pathos. Every country 
girl sings Saw ye my Father ? &c. 

My song is but just begun (Where are, &c, p. 274); and I 
should like, before I proceed, to know your opinion of it. I have 



894 BURNS* LETTERS. 



sprinkled it with the Scottish dialect, but it may be easily turned 
into correct English. 

Todlin Hame — Urbani mentioned an idea of his, which has long 
been mine, that this air is highly susceptible of pathos : accord- 
ingly* y° u w iU soon bear D i m a ^ your concert try it to a song of 
mine in the Museum, Ye Banks and Braes o' bonnie Doon. One 
song more, and I have done — Auld Lang Syne. The air is but 
mediocre; but the following song (p. 234)— the old song of the 
olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in 
manuscript, until I took it down from an old man's singing — is 
enough to recommend any air.* 

Now, I suppose, I have tried your patience fairly. You must 
after all is over, have a number of ballads, properly so called 
Gill Morice, Tranent Muir, Macphersoris Farewell, Battle of Sheriff' 
muir, or, We ran and they ran (I know the author of this charm- 
ing "ballad, and his history), Hardiknute, Barbara Allan (I can 
furnish a finer set of this tune than any that has yet appear- 
ed); and besides, do you know that I really have the old tune tc 
which The Cherry and the Slae was sung, and which is mentioned 
as a well known air in Scotland's Complaint — a book published 
before poor Mary's days? It was then called, The Banks o' 
Helicon — an old poem, which Pinkerton has brought to light. 
You will see all this in Tytler's History of Scottish Music. The 
tune, to a learned ear, may have no great merit ; but it is a great 
curiosity. I have a good many original things of this kind. 

R. B 



CCXCIX. 
TO JOHN M'MURDO, ES§. 

Dumfries, December 179S. 

Sir, — It is said that we take the greatest liberties with ou 
greatest friends, and I pay myself a very high compliment in the 
manner in which I am going to apply the remark. I have owed 
you money longer than ever I owed it to any man. Here is Ker's 
account, and here is six guineas ; and now, I don't owe a shilling 
to man — or woman either. But for these dirty, dog-eared little 
pages, I had done myself the honour to have waited on you long 
ago. Independent of the obligations your hospitality has laid me 
under, the consciousness of your superiority in the rank of man 
and gentleman, of itself was fully as much as I could ever make 
head against ; but to owe you money, too, was more than I could 
face. 

I think I once mentioned something of a collection of Scots 
gongs I have for some years been making — I send you a perusal 

* This Is only an attempt at mystification, Burns himself being the author. 



burns' letters. 



59a 



of what I have got together. I could not conveniently spare them 
above five or six days, and five or six glances of them will pro- 
bably more than suffice you. A very few of them are my own. 
When vou are tired of them, please leave them with Mr Clint, of 
the King's Arms. There is not another copy of the collection in 
the world ; and I should be sorry that any unfortunate negligence 
should deprive me of what has cost me a good deal of pain3. 

R. B. 



COO. 

TO CAPTAIN . 

Dumfries, oth December 1793. 

Sir, — Heated as I was with wine yesternight, I was perhaps 
rather seemingly impertinent in my anxious wish to be honoured 
with your acquaintance. You will forgive it — it was the impulse 
of heartfelt respect. " He is the father of the Scottish county re- 
form, and is a man who does honour to the business, at the same 
time that the business does honour to him," said my worthy friend 
Glenriddel to somebody by me, who was talking of your coming 
to this country with your corps. " Then," I said, " I have a 
woman's longing to take him by the hand, and say to him, — * Sir, 
1 honour you as a man to whom the interests of humanity are 
dear, and as a patriot to whom the rights of your country are 
sacred.' " 

In times like these, sir, when our commoners are barely able, by 
the glimmering of their own twilight understandings, to scrawl a 
frank, and when lords are what gentlemen would be ashamed to 
be, to whom shall a sinking country call for help ? To the inde- 
pendent country gentleman. To him who has too deep a stake in 
his country not to be in earnest for her welfare ; and who, in the 
honest pride of man, can view with equal contempt the insolence 
of office and the allurements of corruption. 

I mentioned to you a Scots ode or song (Bruce* s Address) I had 
lately composed, and which, I think, has some merit. Allow me 
to enclose it. When I fall in with you at the theatre, I shall be 
glad to have your opinion of it. Accept of it, sir, as a very hum- 
ble but most sincere tribute of respect from a man who, dear as he 
prizes poetic fame, yet holds dearer an independent mind. I 
have the honour to be, &c, R. B f 



CCCI. 

TO THE EARL OF BUCHAX. 

Dumfries, \2th January 1794. 
My Lord, — Will your lordship allow me to present you with 



5*3 BL'RNS' LETTERS. 

the enclosed little composition of mine (Bruce' s Address), as a 
small tribute of gratitude for the acquaintance with which you 
have been pleased to honour me ? Independent of my enthusiasm 
as a Scotsman, I have rarely met with anything in history which 
interests my feelings as a man, equal with the story of Bannock- 
burn. On the one hand, a cruel but able usurper leading on the 
finest army in Europe to extinguish the last spark of freedom 
among a greatly-daring and greatly-injured people ; on the other 
hand, the desperate relics of a gallant nation devoting themselves 
to rescue their bleeding country, or perish with her. 

Liberty ! thou art a prize truly and indeed invaluable, for never 
canst thou be too dearly bought ! 

If my little ode has the honour of your lordship's approbation, 
it will gratify my highest ambition. I have the honour to be, &c n 

R. B. 



CCCII. 

TO CAPTAIN MILLER, DALSWLNTON. 

Dear Sir, — The following ode (Bruce* s Address), is on a sub* 
ject which I know you by no means regard with indifference. 
Liberty, 

" Thou rnak'st the gloomy face of nature gay, 
Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day." 

It does me so much good to meet with a man whose honest bosom 
glows with the generous enthusiasm, the heroic daring of liberty, 
that I could not forbear seeding you a composition of my own on 
the subject, which I really think is in my best manner. I have 
the honour to be, dear sir, &c, R. B. 



CCCIIL 
TO MRS RIDDEL. 

Dear Madam, — I meant to have called on you yesternight, 
but as I edged up to your box-door, the first object which greeted 
my view was one of those lobster-coated puppies, sitting like ano- 
ther dragon, guarding the Hesperian fruit. On the conditions 
and capitulations you so obligingly offer, I shall certainly make 
my weather beaten rustic phiz a part of your box-furniture on 
Tuesday, when we may arrange the business of the visit. 

Among the profusion of idle compliments which insidious craft 
or unmeaning folly incessantly offer at your shrine — a shrine, 
how far exalted above such adoration ! — permit me, were it but for 
rarity's sake, to pay you the honest tribute of a warm heart and 



BURNS' LETTERS. 597 



an independent mind ; and to assure you that I am, thou most 
amiable and most accomplished of thy sex, with the most respect- 
ful esteem and fervent regard, thine, &c, R. B. 



* « CCCIY. 

TO MR STEPHEN CLARKE, JUN., DUMFRIES. 

Sunday morning. 
Dear Sir, — I was, I know, drunk last night, but I am sober 

this morning. From the expressions Capt. made use of to 

me, had I had nobody's welfare to care for but my own, we should 
certainly have come, according to the manners of the world, to 
the necessity of murdering one another about the business. The 
words were such as, generally, I believe, end in a brace of pistols ; 
but I am still pleased to think that I did not ruin the peace and 
welfare of a wife and family of children in a drunken squabble. 
Further, you know that the report of certain political opinions 
being mine, has already once before brought me to the brink of 
destruction. I dread lest last night's business may be misrepre- 
sented in the same way. You, I beg, will take care to prevent it. 
I tax your wish for Mrs Burns's welfare with the task of waiting, 
as soon as possible, on every gentleman who was present, and state 
this to him, and, as you please, show him this letter. What, after 
all, was the obnoxious toast ? " May our success in the present 
war be equal to the justice of our cause" — a toast that the most 
outrageous frenzy of loyalty cannot object to. I request and beg 
that this morning you will wait on the parties present at the 
foolish dispute. I shall only add, that I am truly sorry that a 

man who stood so high in my estimation as Mr should use 

me in the manner in which I conceive he has done. R. B. 



CCCY. 
TO MRS RIDDEL. 

Madam, — I daresay that this is the first epistle you ever re- 
ceived from this nether world. The time and manner of my 
leaving your earth I do not exactly know, as I took my departure 
in the heat of a fever of intoxication, contracted at your too hos- 
pitable mansion ; but, on my arrival here, I was fairly tried, and 
sentenced to endure the purgatorial tortures of this infernal con- 
fine for the space of ninety-nine years, eleven months, and twenty- 
nine days, and all on account of the impropriety of my conduct 
yesternight under your roof. Here am I, laid on a bed of pitiless 
furze, with my aching head reclined on a pillow of ever-piercing 



5»* BURNS* LETTERS, 



thorn, while an infernal tormenter, wrinkled, and old, and cruel— 
his name, I think, is Recollection — with a whip of scorpions, forbids 
peace or rest to approach ine, and keeps anguish eternally awake. 
Still, madam, if I could in any measure be reinstated in the good 
opinion of the fair circle whom my conduct last night so much 
injured, I think it would be an alleviation to my torments. For 
this reason, I trouble you with this Tetter. To the men of the 
company I will make no apology. Your husband, who insisted on 
my drinking more than I chose, has no right to blame me ; and 
the other gentlemen were partakers of my guilt. But to you, 
madam, I have much to apologise. Your good opinion I valued 
as one of the greatest acquisitions I had made on earth, and I 

was truly a beast to forfeit it. There was a Miss I , too, a 

woman of fine sense, gentle and unassuming manners — do make, 
on my part, a miserable wretch's best apology to her. A Mrs 

G , a charming woman, did me the honour to be prejudiced 

in my favour ; this makes me hope that I have not outraged her 
beyond all forgiveness. To all the other ladies, please present my 
humblest contrition for my conduct, and my petition for their 
gracious pardon. all ye powers of decency and decorum ! whisper 
to them that my errors, though great, were involuntary — that an 
intoxicated man is the vilest of beasts — that it was not in my 
nature to be brutal to any one — that to be rude to a woman, when 

in my senses, was impossible with me — but 

* * # # * 

Regret ! Remorse ! Shame ! ye three hell-hounds that ever dog 
my steps and bay at my heels, spare me ! spare me ! 

Forgive the offences, and pity the misery of, madam, your 
humble slave, R. B. 



CCCVI. 
TO MRS RIDDEL. 

Madam, — I return your commonplace-book. I have perused it 
with much pleasure, and would have continued my criticisms, but 
as it seems the critic has forfeited your esteem, his strictures must 
lose their value. 

If it is true that * offences come only from the heart," before 
you I am guiltless. To admire, esteem, and prize you, as the 
most accomplished of women, and the first of friends — if these are 
crimes, I am the most offending thing alive. 

In a face where I used to meet the kind complacency of friendly 
confidence, now to find cold neglect and contemptuous scorn, is a 
wrench that my heart can ill bear. It is, however, some kind of 
miserable good-luck, that while de haut-en-bas rigour may depress 
tn unoffending wretch to the ground, it has a tendency to rouse a 



BURNS* LETTERS. 



stubborn something in his bosom, which, though it cannot heal 
the wounds of his soul, is at least an opiate to blunt their poig- 
nancy. 

With the profoundest respect for your abilities ; the most sincere 
esteem and ardent regard for your gentle heart and amiable 
manners ; and the most fervent wish and prayer for your welfare, 
peace, and bliss — I have the honour to be, madam, your most 
devoted humble servant, R. B. 



CCCVII. 
TO THE SAME. 

I have tliis moment got the song from Syme, and I am sorry 
to see that he has spoilt it a good deal. It shall be a lesson to 
me how I lend him anything again. 

I have sent you Werter, truly happy to have any, the smallest, 
opportunity of obliging you. 

'Tis true, madam, I saw you once since I was at Woodley ; ana 
that once froze the very life-blood of my heart. Your reception 
of me was such that a wretch meeting the eye of his judge, about 
to pronounce sentence of death on him, could only have envied 
my feelings and situation. But I hate the theme, and nevei 
more shall write or speak on it. 

One thing I shall proudly say, that I can pay Mrs R. a highei 
tribute of esteem, and appreciate her amiable worth more truly 
than any man whom I have seen approach her. R. B. 



CCCVIII. 
TO MR ALEXANDER CUNNIXC4HAM. 

2oth February 1794. 

Canst thou minister to a mind diseased ? Canst thou speak 
peace and rest to a soul tost on a sea of troubles, without one 
friendly star to guide her course, and dreading that the next 
surge may overwhelm her ? Canst thou give to a frame, trem- 
bling alive as the tortures of suspense, the stability and hardihood 
of the rock that braves the blast ? If thou canst not do the least 
of these, why wouldst thou disturb me in my miseries with thy 
inquiries after me ? 

For these two months I have not been able to lift a pen. My 
constitution and frame were, ab origine, blasted with a deep, in- 
curable taint of hypochondria, which poisons my existence. Of 
late, a number of domestic vexations, and some pecuniary share 



6 00 burns' letters. 



in the ruin of these wretched times, — losses which, though trifling, 
were yet what I could ill bear, — have so irritated me, that my 
feelings at times could only be envied by a reprobate spirit listen- 
ing to the sentence that dooms it to perdition, 

Are you deep in the language of consolation ? I have exhausted 
in reflection every topic of comfort. A heart at ease would have 
been charmed with my sentiments and reasonings ; but as to 
myself, I was like Judas Iscariot preaching the gospel : he might 
melt and mould the hearts of those around him, but his own kept 
its native incorrigibility. 

Still, there are two great pillars that bear us up amid the wreck 
of misfortune and misery. The one is composed of the different 
modifications of a certain noble, stubborn something in man, 
known by the names of Courage, Fortitude, Magnanimity. The 
other is made up of those feelings and sentiments which, how- 
ever the sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiast disfigure them, 
are yet, I am convinced, original and component parts of the 
human soul ; those senses of the mind — if I may be allowed the 
expression — which connect us with, and link us to those awful 
obscure realities — an all-powerful and equally beneficent God, 
and a world to come, beyond death and the grave. The first gives 
the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams on the field ; the 
last pours the balm of comfort into the wounds which time can 
never cure. 

I do not remember, my dear Cunningham, that you and I ever 
talked on the subject of religion at all. I know some who laugh 
at it as the trick of the crafty few to lead the undiscerning 
many ; or, at most, as an uncertain obscurity which .mankind 
can never know anything of, and with which they are fools if they 
give themselves much to do. Nor would I quarrel with a man 
for his irreligion any more than I would for his want of a musical 
ear. I would regret that he was shut out from what, to me and to 
others, were such superlative sources of enjoyment. It is in this 
point of view, and for this reason, that I will deeply imbue the 
mind of every child of mine with religion. If my son should 
happen to be a man of feeling, sentiment, and taste, I shall thus 
add largely to his enjoyments. Let me flatter myself that this 
sweet little fellow, who is just now running about my desk, will 
be a man of a melting, ardent, glowing heart; and an imagination 
delighted with the painter, and wrapt with the poet. Let me 
figure him wandering out in a sweet evening, to inhale the balmy 
gales, and enjoy the growing luxuriance of the spring ; himself 
the while in the blooming youth of life, He looks abroad on all 
nature, and through nature up to nature's God. His soul, by 
swift, delighting degrees, is wrapt above this sublunary sphere, 
until he can be silent no longer, and bursts out into the glorious 
enthusiasm of Thomson — 



BURNS' LETTERS. 601 

" These, as they change, Almighty Father, thesa 
Are but the rarled God. The rolling year 
Is full of thee;" 

and so on, in all the spirit and ardour of that charming hymn. 
These are no ideal pleasures — they are real delights ; and I ask, 
what of the delights among the sons of men are superior, not to say 
equal, to them? And they have this precious, vast addition, that 
conscious "Virtue stamps them for her own, and lays hold on them 
to bring herself into the presence of a witnessing, judging, and 
approving God. R. B. 



CCCIX. 
TO MR JAMES JOHNSON. 

Dumfries, February 1794. 

My dear Sir, — I send you, by my friend Mr Wallace forty-one 
songs for your fifth volume. Mr Clarke has also a good many, if 
he have not, with his usual indolence, cast them at the cocks, I 
have still a good parcel amongst my hands in scraps and frag™ 
ments ; so that I hope we will make shift with our last volume. 

You should have heard from me long ago ; but over and above 
some vexatious share in the pecuniary losses of these accursed 
times, I have all this winter been plagued with low spirits and 
blue devils ; so that I have almost hung my harp on the willow-trees. 

In the meantime, at your leisure, give a copy of the Museum to 
my worthy friend, Mr Peter Hill, bookseller, to bind for me, inter- 
leaved with blank leaves, exactly as he did the. Laird of Glen- 
riddel's, that I may insert every anecdote I can learn, together 
with my own criticisms and remarks on the songs. A copy of 
this kind I shall leave with you, the editor, to publish at some 
after-period, by way of making the Museum a book famous to the 
and of time, and you renowned for ever. 

I have got a Highland dirk, for which I have great veneration, 
as it once was the dirk of Lord Balmerino. Jt fell into bad hands, 
who stripped it of the silver-mounting, as well as the knife and 
fork. I have some thoughts of sending it to your care, to get it 
mounted anew. Our friend Clarke owes me an account, some- 
where about one pound, which would go a good way in paying the 
expense. I remember you once settled an account in this way 
before, and as you still have money-matters to settle with him, 
you might accommodate us both. . . . My best compliments to 
four worthy old father and your hotter-half. Yours, R. B. 



•Of BURNS' LETTERS. 



cccx. 

TO MISS — 



Dumfries, May or June 17t)4 ? 

Madam, — Nothing short of a kind of absolute necessity could 
have made me trouble you with this letter. Except my ardent 
and just esteem for your sense, taste, and worth, every sentiment 
arising in my breast, as I put pen to paper to you, is painful. 
The scenes I have passed with the friend of my soul, and his 
amiable connections ! the wrench at my heart to think that he is 
gone, for ever gone, from me, never more to meet in the wander- 
ings of a weary world 1 and the cutting reflection of all, that 1 
had most unfortunately, though most undeservedly, lost the confi- 
dence of that soul of worth, ere it took its flight ! — these, madam, 
are sensations of no ordinary anguish. However you also may 
be offended with some imputed improprieties of mine ; sensibility 
you know I possess, and sincerity none will deny me. 

To oppose those prejudices which have been raised against me, 
is not the business of this letter. Indeed, it is a warfare I know 
not how to wage. The powers of positive vice I can in some 
degree calculate, and against direct malevolence I can be on my 
guard ; but who can estimate the fatuity of giddy caprice, or ward 
off the unthinking mischief of precipitate folly ? 

I have a favour to request of you, madam, and of your sister, 
Mrs Riddell, through your means. You know that, at the wish 
of my late friend, I made a collection of all my trifles in verse 
which I had eve*r written. They are many of them local, some of 
them puerile and silly, and all of them unfit for the public eye* 
As I have some little fame at stake, — a fame that T trust may live 
when the hate of those " who watch for my halting," and the con- 
tumelious sneer of those whom accident has made my superior?, 
will, with themselves, be gone to the regions of oblivion, — I air 
uneasy now for the fate of those manuscripts. "Will Mrs Riddel 
have the goodness to destroy them, or return them to me ? As a 
pledge of friendship they were bestowed ; and that circumstance, 
indeed, wa3 all their merit. Most unhappily for me, that merit 
they no longer possess ; and I hope that Mrs Riddel's goodness, 
which I well know, and ever will revere, will not refuse this favour 
to a man whom she once held in some degree of estimation. 

"With the sincerest esteem, T have the honour to be, madam, &c, 

R. B. 

CCCX I. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

May 1794. 
My dear Sir, — I return you the plates, with which I am highlj 
i 



BURNS' LETTERS. 603 

pleased ; 1 would humbly propose, instead of the younker knitting 
stockings, to put a stock and horn into his hands. A friend o! 
mine, who is positively the ablest judge on the subject I have ever 
met with, and though an unknown, is yet a superior artist with 
the burin, is quite charmed with Allan's manner. I got him a 
peep of the Gentle Shepherd ,• and he pronounces Allan a most 
original artist of great excellence. 

For my part, I look on Mr Allan's choosing my favourite poem 
for his subject, to be one of the highest compliments I have ever 
received. 

I am quite vexed at PleyePs being cooped up in France, as it 
will put an entire stop to our work. Now, and for six or seven 
months, I shall be quite in song, as you shall see by and by. I 
know you value a composition because it is made by one of the 
great ones as little as I do. However, I got an air, pretty enough, 
composed by Lady Elizabeth Heron of Heron, which she callg 
The Banks of Cree. Cree is a beautiful romantic stream ; and as 
her ladyship is a particular friend of mine, I have written the fol- 
lowing song to it (p. 282). K. B. 



CCCXIL 

TO DAVID M'CULLOCH, ESQ. 

Dumfries, 21st June 1794. 
My dear Sir, — My long-projected journey through your coun- 
try is at last fixed ; and on Wednesday next, if you have nothing 
of more importance to do, take a saunter down to Gatehouse 
about two or three o'clock ; I shall be happy to take a draught of 
M'Kune's best with you. Collector Syme will be at Glen's about 
that time, and will meet us about dish-of-tea hour. Syme goes 
also to Kerrochtree ; and let me remind you of your kind promise 
to accompany me there. I will need all the friends I can muster, 
for I am indeed ill at ease when I approach your honourables and 
right honourables. Yours sincerely, R. B. 



CC'CXIII. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Castle-Douglas, 2oth June 1794 
Here, in a solitary inn, in a solitary village, am I set by myself, 
to amuse my brooding fancy as I may. Solitary confinement, you 
know, is HoAvard's favourite idea of reclaiming sinners ; so A et me 
consider by what fatality it happens that I have so long been so 
exceeding sinful as to neglect the correspondence of the mos> 



*04 burns' letters. 



valued friend I have on earth. To tell you that I have been in 
poor health will not be excuse enough, though it is true. I am 
afraid that I am about to suffer for the follies of my youth. My 
medical friends threaten me with a flying gout ; but I trust they 
are mistaken. 

I am just going to trouble your critical patience with the first 
sketch of a stanza I have been framing as I passed along the 
road. The subject is Liberty : you know, my honoured friend, how 
dear the theme is to me. I design it as an irregular ode for 
General Washington's birthday. After having mentioned the 
degeneracy of other kingdoms, I come to Scotland thus (Thee, Cale~ 
(Ionia, p. 175). 

You will probably have another scrawl frqin me in a stage or 
two. R. B. 



CCCXIV. 
TO CLARINDA. 

Before you ask me why I have not written you, first let me 
be informed by you, how I shall write you ? " In friendship," you 
say ; and I have many a time taken up my pen to try an epistle 
of " friendship" to you, but it will not do ; 'tis like Jove grasping 
a pop-gun after having wielded his thunder. When I take up 
the pen, recollection ruins me. Ah, my ever dearest Clarinda 
Clarinda ! What a host of Memory's tenderest offspring crowd on 
my fancy at that sound ! But I must not indulge that subject ■ 
you have forbid it. 

I am extremely happy to learn that your precious health is re- 
established, and that you are once more fit to enjoy that satisfac- 
tion in existence which health alone can give us. My old friend 
Ainslie has indeed been kind to you. Tell him that I envy him 
the power of serving you. I had a letter from him awhile ago, 
but it was so dry, so distant, so like a card to one of his clients, 
that I could scarce bear to read it, and have not yet answered it. 
He is a good, honest fellow, and can write a friendly letter, which 
would do equal honour to his head and his heart, as a whole sheaf 
of his letters which I have by me will witness ; and though Fame 
does not blow her trumpet at my approach noiv as she did then, 
when he first honoured me with his friendship, yet I am as proud 
as ever ; and when I am laid in my grave, I wish to be stretched 
at my full length, that I may occupy every inch of ground 1 have 
a right to. 

You would laugh were you to see me where I am just now. 
Would that you were here to laugh with me, though I am afraid 
that crying would be our first employment ! Here am I set, a soli- 
tary hermit, in the solitary room of a solitary inn, with a solitary 



burns' letters . «og 



bottle of wine by me, as grave and as stupid as an owl, but, like 
lhat owl, still faithful to my old song ; in confirmation of which, 
my dear Mrs Mac, here is your good health ! May the hand- 
waled benisons o' Heaven bless your bonny face. Amen. 

You must know, my dearest madam, that these now many 
years, wherever I am, in whatever company, when a married lady 
is called as a toast, I constantly give you ; but as your name has 
never passed my lips, even to my most intimate friend, I give you 
by the name of Mrs Mac. This is so well known among my 
acquaintances, that when any married lady is called for, the 
toast-master will say, " Oh, we need not ask him who it is : here's 
Mrs Mac !" I have also, among my convivial friends, set on foot 
a round of toasts, which I call a round of Arcadian Shepherdesses 
— that is, a round of favourite ladies, under female names cele- 
brated in ancient song ; and then you are my Clarinda. So, my 
lovely Clarinda, I devote this glass of wine to a most ardent wish 
for you happiness. 

In vain would Prudence, with decorous sneer, 
Point out a censuring world, and bid me fear 
Above that world on wings of love I rise, 
I know its worst, and can that worst despise. 
** Wronged, injured, shunned, unpitied, unredrest; 
The mocked quotation of the scorner's jest''— 
Let Prudence' direst bodements on me fall, 
Clarinda, rich reward! o'erpays them all. 

I have been rhyming a little of late, but I do not know if they 
are worth postage. 

Tell me what you think of the following monody. * * * 
The subject of the foregoing is a woman of fashion in this 
country, with whom at one period I was well acquainted. By 
some scandalous conduct to me, and two or three other gentlemen 
here as well as me, she steered so far to the north of my good 
opinion, that I have made her the theme of several ill-natured 
things. The following epigram {Monody, p. 172) struck me the 
other day as I passed her carriage. * * * Sylyander. 



cccxv. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

July 1794. 

Is there no news yet of Pleyel ? Or is your work to be at a 
dead stop until the allies set our modern Orpheus at liberty from 
the savage thraldom of democrat discords ? Alas the day ! And 
wo is me ! That auspicious period, pregnant with the happiness 
of millions * * * seems by no means near. 

I have presented a copy of your songs to the daughter of a 
much-valued and much-honoured friend of mine, Mr Graham of 



606 BURNS LETTERS. 



Fintry. I wrote on the blank side of the title-page the follow* 
ing adttress to the young lady (p. 175). R. B. 



CCCXVI. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

30th August 1794. 

The last evening, as I was straying out, and thinking of O'er 
the Hills and far a w ay, I spun the following stanza (p. 282) for it ; 
but whether my spinning will deserve to be laid up in store like 
the precious thread of the silkworm, or brushed away like the 
vile manufacture of the ^spider, I leave, my dear sir, to your 
usual candid criticism. I was pleased with several lines in it at 
first, but I own that now it appears rather a flimsy business. 

This is just a hasty sketch until I see whether it be worth a 
critique. We have many sailor-songs, but as far as I at present 
recollect, they are mostly the effusions of the jovial sailor, not the 
wailings of his love-lorn mistress. I must here make one sweet 
exception — Sweet Annie frae the Sea-beach came* 

I give you leave to abuse this song, but do it in the spirit of 
Christian meekness. R. B. 



CCCXVII. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

Sept 1794. 

1 shall withdraw my On the Seas and far away altogether : it 
is unequal, and unworthy the work. Making a poem is like be- 
getting a son ; you cannot know whether you have a wise man or 
a fool until you produce him to the world to try him. 

For that reason, I send you the offspring of my brain, abor- 
tions and all ; and, as such, pray look over them, and forgive 
them, and burn them. I am flattered at your adopting Ca' the 
Yowes to the Knowes, as it was owing to me that ever it saw the 
light. About seven years ago, I was well acquainted with a 
worthy little fellow of a clergyman," a Mr Clunie, who sang it 
charmingly ; and, at my request, Mr Clarke took it down from his 
singing. When I gave it to Johnson, I added some stanzas to the 
song, and mended others ; but still it will not do for you. In a 
solitary stroll which I took to-day, I tried my hand on a few pas- 
toral lines, following up the idea of the chorus, which I would pre- 
serve. Here it is, with all its crudities and imperfections on its 
head (p. 283). 

I shall give you my opinion of your other newly-adopted song9 
my first scribbling fit, R. B. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 607 



CCCXVIII. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

Sept, 1794. 

Do you know an Irish song called Onagh's Waterfall? Our 
friend Cunningham sings it delightfully. The air is charming, 
and I have often regretted the want of decent verses to it. It is 
too much, at least for my humble rustic Muse, to expect that every 
effort of hers shall have merit ; still, I think that it is better to 
have mediocre verses to a favourite air than none at all. On 
this principle I have all along proceeded in the Scots Musical 
Museum ; and as that publication is at its last volume, I intend 
the following song (p. 284), to the air above mentioned, for that 
work. 

If it does not suit you as an editor, you may be pleased to have 
verses to it that you can sing in the company of ladies. 

Not to compare small things with great, my taste in music is 
like the mighty Frederick of Prussia's taste in painting. "VVe are 
told that he frequently admired what the connoisseurs decried, 
and always, without any hypocrisy, confessed his admiration. I am 
sensible that my taste in music must be inelegant and vulgar, 
because people of undisputed and cultivated taste can find no 
merit in my favourite tunes. Still, because I am cheaply pleased, 
is that any reason why I should deny myself that pleasure ? Many 
of our strathspeys, ancient and modern, give me most exquisite 
enjoyment, where you and other judges would probably be showing 
iisgust. For instance, I am just now making verses for Rothe- 
murchie's Rant, an air which puts me in raptures ; and, in fact, 
unless I be pleased with the tune, I never can make verses to it. 
Here I have Clarke on my side, who is a judge that I will pit 
against any of you. Rothemurchie, he says, " is an air both ori- 
ginal and beautiful ;" and on his recommendation I have taken 
the first part of the tune for a chorus, and the fourth or last part 
for the song. I am but two stanzas deep in the work, and pos- 
sibly you may think, and justly, that the poetry is as little worth 
your attention as the music. 

I have begun anew, Let me in this ae Night. Do you think that we 
ought to retain the old chorus ? I think we must retain both the 
old chorus and the first stanza of the old song. I do not altoge- 
ther like the third line of the first stanza, but cannot alter it to 
please myself. I am just three stanzas deep in it. Would you 
have the denouement to be successful or otherwise ? — should she 
" let him in" or not ? 

Did you not once propose The Sow's Tail to Geordie as an air for 
your work ? I am quite delighted with it ; but I acknowledge 
that is no mark of its real excellence. I once set about verses for 
it, which T meant to be in the alternate way of a lover and hif 



C08 BURNS' LETTERS. 



mistress chanting together. I have not the pleasure of knowing 
Mrs Thomson's Christian name, and yours, I am afraid, is rather 
burlesque for sentiment, else I had meant to have made you [two] 
the hero and heroine of the little piece. 

How do you like the following epigram, which I wrote the other 
day on a lovely young girl's recovery from a fever ? Dr Maxwell 
was the physician who seemingly saved her from the grave ; and 
to him I address the following (p. 178). R. B. 



CCCXIX. 
TO MR THOMSON. 

19th October 1794. 

My dear Friend, — By this morning's post I have your list, 
and, in general, I highly approve of it. I shall, at more leisure, 
give you a critique on the whole. Clarke goes to your town by 
to-day's fly, and I wish you would call on him, and take his opi- 
nion in general : you know his taste is a standard. He will return 
here again in a week or two, so please do not miss asking for him. 
One thing I hope he will do, which would give me high satisfac- 
tion — persuade you to adopt my favourite, Oraigieburn Wood, in 
your selection : it is as great a favourite of his as of mine. The 
lady on whom it was made is one of the finest women in Scotland ; 
and, in fact (entre nous), is in a manner to me what Sterne's Eliza 
was to him — a mistress, or friend, or what you will, in the guile- 
less simplicity of Platonic love. (Now, don't put any of your 
squinting constructions on this, or have any clishmaclaver about 
it among our acquaintances.) I assure you, that to my lovely 
friend you are indebted for many of your best songs of mine. Do 
you think that the sober, gin-horse routine of existence could in- 
spire a man with life, and love, and joy — could fire him with en- 
thusiasm, or melt him with pathos, equal to the genius of your 
book ? No — no ! Whenever I want to be more than ordinary in 
song — to be in some degree equal to your diviner airs — do you 
imagine I fast and pray for the celestial emanation ? Tout au 
contrairef I have a glorious recipe; the very one that for his 
own use was invented by the divinity of healing and poetry, when 
erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus. I put myself in a regimen 
of admiring a fine woman ; and, in proportion to the adorability 
of her charms, in proportion you are delighted with my verses. 
The lightning of her eye is the godhead of Parnassus, and the 
witchery of her smile the divinity of Helicon I 

To descend to the business with which I began : If you like my 
idea of When she cam ben she bobbit, the following stanzas of mine 
(p. 285), altered a little from what they were formerly, when set 
to another air, may perhaps do instead of worse stanzas. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 609 



Now for a few miscellaneous remarks. The Posie (in the Museum) 
is my composition ; the air was taken down from Mrs Burns'a 
roice. It is well known in the west country, but the old words are 
trash. By the by, take a look at the tune again, and tell me if 
you do not think it is the original from which Roslin.Castle is 
composed. The second part, in particular, for the first two or 
three bars, is exactly the old air. StrathaUans Lament is mine ; 
the music is by our right trusty and deservedly well-beloved Allan 
Masterton. Donocht-Head is not mine ; I would give ten pounds 
are. It appeared first in the Edinburgh Herald, and came to 
the editor of that paper with the Newcastle post-mark on it. 
WhuUt o'er the Lave o't is mine ; the music said to be by a John 
Bruce, a celebrated violin-player in Dumfries about the beginning 
of this century. This I know — Bruce, who was an honest man, 
though a red-wud Highlandman, constantly claimed it ; and by 
the old musical people here is believed to be the author of it 

Andrew and his Cully Gun. — The song to which this is set in the 
Museum is mine, and was composed on Miss Euphemia Murray, 
of Lintrose, commonly and deservedly called The Flower of Strath- 
more. 

How long and dreary is the Xight .' — I met with some such words 
in a collection of songs somewhere, which I altered and enlarged ; 
and to please you, and to suit your favourite air, I have taken a 
stride or two across my room, and have arranged it anew, as you 
frill find on the other page (p. 285). 

Tell me how you like this. I differ from your idea of the ex- 
pression of the tune. There is, to me, a great deal of tenderness 
in it. You cannot, in my opinion, dispense with a bass to your 
addenda aire. A lady of my acquaintance, a noted performer, 
plays Xae luck about the House, and sings it at the same time so 
charmingly, that I shall never bear to see any of her songs sent 
into the world as naked as Mr "vVhat-d'ye-call-um has done in 
his London collection. 

These English songs gravel me to death. I have not that com- 
mand of the language that I have of my native tongue. In fact, 
I think my ideas are more barren in English than in Scotch. I 
have been at Duncan Gray, to dress it in English, but all I can do 
is deplorably stupid. For instance {Let not Woman, p. 286). 

Since the above, I have been out in the country taking a dinner 
with a friend, where I met with the lady whom I mentioned in the 
second page in this odds-and-ends of a letter. As usual. I got into 
song ; and, returning home, I composed the following {The Lover's, 
&e, p. 256). 

If you honour my verses by setting the air to them, I will vamp 
up the old song, and make it English enough to be understood. 

I enclose you a musical curiosity, an East Indian air, which you 
would swear was a Scottish one. I know the authenticity of it, 



610 BURNS' LETTERS. 



as the gentleman who brought it over is a particular acquaintance 
of mine. Do preserve me the copy I send you, as it is the only one 
I have. Clarke has set a bass to it, and I intend putting it into 
tho Musical Museum. Here follow the verses I intend for it 
(The Auld Man, p. 287). 

I would be obliged to you if you would procure me a sight of 
Ritson's collection of English songs which you mention in your 
letter. I will thank you for another information, and that as 
speedily as you please : whether this miserable, drawling, hotch- 
potch epistle has not completely tired you of my correspondence. 

R. B. 



CCOXX. 
TO MR PETER HILL, EDINBURGH. 

Dumfries, October 1794. 

My dear Hill, — By a carrier of yesterday, Henry Osborn by 
name, I sent you a kippered* salmon, which I trust you will duly 
receive, and which I also trust will give you many a toothful of 
satisfaction. If you have the confidence to say that there is any- 
thing of the kind in all your great city superior to this in true 
kipper relish and flavour, I will be revenged by — not sending you 
another next season. In return, the first party of friends that 
dine with you — provided that your fellow-travellers and my 
trusty and well-beloved veterans in intimacy, Messrs Ramsay and 
Cameron, be of the party — about that time in the afternoon when 
a relish or devil becomes grateful, give them two or three slices 
of the kipper, and drink a bumper to your friends in Dumfries. 
Moreover, by last Saturday's fly I sent you a hare, which I hope 
came, and carriage-free, safe to your hospitable mansion and 
social table. So much for business. 

My best good-wishes to Mrs Hill ; and believe me to be, ever 
yours, R. Burns. 



CCCXXL 

TO MR THOMSON. 

November 1794. 
Many thanks to you, my dear sir, for your present ; it is a 
book of the utmost importance to me. I have yesterday begun my 
anecdotes, &c, for your work. I intend drawing them up in the 
form of a letter to you, which will save me from the.tediou.3, dull 
business of systematic arrangement. Indeed, as all I have to say 
consists of unconnected remarks, anecdotes, scraps of old songs, 
&c, it would be impossible to give the work a beginning, a middle 

* Dried and cured. 



burns' letters. 611 



and an end, which the critics insist to be absolutely necessary in 
a work. In my last, I told you my objections to the song you had 
selected for My Lodging is on the cold Ground. On my visit the 
other day to my fair Chloris — that is the poetic name of the lovely 
godde.is of my inspiration — she suggested an idea, which I, on my 
return from the visit, wrought into the following song (p. 287). 

How do you like the simplicity and tenderness of this pastoral ? 
I think it pretty well. 

I like you for entering so candidly and so kindly into the story 
of " ma chere amie." I assure you, I was never more in earnest in 
my life, than in the account of that affair which I sent you in my 
last. Conjugal love is a passion which I deeply feel and highly 
venerate ; but, somehow, it does not make such a figure in poesy 
as that other species of the passion — 

"Where Love is liberty and Nature law." 

Musically speaking, the first is an instrument of which the gamut 
is scanty and confined, but the tones inexpressibly sweet, while 
the last has powers equal to all the intellectual modulations of the 
human soul. Still, I am a very poet in my enthusiasm of the 
passion. The welfare and happiness of the beloved object is the 
first and inviolate sentiment that pervades my soul ; and whatever 
pleasures I might wish for, or whatever might be the raptures 
they would give me, yet if they interfere with that first principle, 
it is having these pleasures at a dishonest price ; and justice for- 
bids, and generosity disdains, the purchase ! . . . . 

Despairing of my own powers to give you variety enough in 
English songs, I have been turning over old collections to pick 
out songs, of which the measure is something similar to what I 
want; and, with a little alteration, so as to suit the rhythm of the 
air exactly, to give you them for your work. Where the songs 
have hitherto been but little noticed, nor have ever been set 
to music, I think the shift a fair one. A song which, under 
the same first verse, you will find in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscel- 
lany, I have cut down for an English dress to your Dainty Davie, 
as follows (p. 288). 

You may think meanly of this, but take a look at the bombast 
original, and you will be surprised -that I have made so much of 
it. I have finished my song to Rothemurchie's Rant (p. 288), and 
you have Clarke to consult as to the set of the air for singing. 

This piece has at least the merit of being a regular pastoral 
the vernal morn, the summer noon, the autumnal evening, and 
the winter night, are regularly rounded. If you like it, well ; if 
not, I will insert it in the Museum. 

I am out of temper that you should set so sweet, so tender an 
air as Deiltalc the Wars to the foolish old verses. You talk of 
the silliness of Saw ye My Father ? The odds is gold to brass ! Be- 
sides, the old song, though now pretty well modernized into the 



2q 



«1* BURNS' LETTERS. 



Scottish language, is originally, and in the early editions, a bung- 
ling low imitation of the Scottish manner, by that genius, Tom 
D'Urfey, so has no pretension to be a Scottish production. 
There is a pretty English song by Sheridan, in the Duenna, to 
this air, which is out of sight superior to D'Urfey's. It begins — 

" When Bable night each drooping plant restoring." 

The air, if I understand the expression of it properly, is the 
very natire language of simplicity, tenderness, and love. I have 
again gone over my song to the tune as follows (p. 286). 

There is another air, The Caledonian Hunt's Delight, to which 
I wrote a song that you will find in Johnson, Ye Banks and Braes 
6* Bonnie Doon ; this air, I think, might find a place among your 
hundred, as Lear says of his knights. Do you know the history 
of the air ? It is curious enough. A good many years ago, Mr 
James Miller, writer in your good town, a gentleman whom pos- 
sibly you know, was in company with our friend Clarke ; and 
talking of Scottish music, Miller expressed an ardent ambition 
to be able to compose a Scots air. Mr Clarke, partly by way of 
joke, told him to keep to the black keys of the harpsichord, and 
preserve some kind of rhythm, and he would infallibly compose a 
Scots air. Certain it is that, in a few days, Mr Miller produced 
the rudiments of an air, which Mr Clarke, with some touches and 
corrections, fashioned into the tune in question. Ritson, you 
know, has the same story of the black keys ; but this account 
which I have just given you, Mr Clarke informed me of several 
year3 ago. Now, to show you how difficult it is to trace the origin 
of our airs, I have heard it repeatedly asserted that this was an 
Irish air : nay, I met with an Irish gentleman who affirmed that 
he heard it in Ireland among the old women ; while, on the other 
hand, a lady of fashion, no less than a countess, informed me 
that the first person who introduced the air into thi3 country 
was a baronet's lady of her acquaintance, who took down the 
notes from an itinerant piper in the Isle of Man. How difficult, 
then, to ascertain the truth respecting our poesy and music ! I 
myself have lately seen a couple of ballads sung through the 
streets of Dumfries, with my name at the head of them as the 
author, though it was the first time I had ever seen them. 

I thank you for admitting Craigieburn Wood, and I shall take 
care to furnish you^with a new chorus. In fact, the chorus was 
not my work, but a part of some old verses to the air. Tf I can 
catch myself in a more than ordinarily propitious moment, I shall 
write a new Craigieburn Wood altogether. My heart is much in 
the theme. 

I am ashamed, my dear fellow, to make the request — 'tis dun- 
ning your generosity ; but in a moment when I had forgotten 
whether I was rich or poor, I promised Chloris a copy of your 
songs. It rings my honest pride to write you this ; but an uo< 



BURNS LETTERS. 618 



gracious request is doubly so by a tedious apology. To make you 
gome amends, as soon as I have extracted the necessary informa* 
matron out of them, I will return you Ritson's volumes. 

The lady is not a little proud that she is to make so distinguished 
a figure in your collection, and I am not a little proud that I have 
it in my power to please her so much. Lucky it is for your patience 
that my paper is done, for when I am in a scribbling humour, I 
know not when to give over. R. B. 



CCCXXII. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

19th November 1794. 

You see, my dear sir, what a punctual correspondent I am , 
though, indeed, you may thank yourself for the tedium of my 
letters, as you have so nattered me on my horsemanship with my 
favourite hobby, and have praised the grace of his ambling so 
much, that I am scarcely ever off his back. For instance, this 
morning, though a keen-blowing frost, in my walk before break- 
fast, I finished my duet, which you were pleased to praise so much. 
"Whether I have uniformly succeeded, I will not say ; but here it 
is for you, though it is not an hour old (Philly and Willy, p. 289). 
Tell me honestly how you like it, and point out whatever you 
think faulty. 

I am much pleased with your idea of singing our songs in alter- 
nate stanzas, and regret that you did not hint it to me sooner. In 
those that remain, I shall have it in my eye. I remember your 
objections to the name Philly, but it is the common abbrevia- 
tion of Phillis. Sally, the only other name that suits, has, to my 
ear, a vulgarity about it which unfits it for anything except bur- 
lesque. The legion of Scottish poetasters of the day, whom your 
brother-editor, Mr Ritson, ranks with me as my coevals, have 
always mistaken vulgarity for simplicity ; whereas, simplicity is 
as much eloignee from vulgarity on the one hand, as from affected 
point and puerile conceit on the other. 

I agree with you as to the air Craigiebum Wood, that a chorus 
would in soroe degree spoil the effect, and shall certainly have 
none in my projected song to it. It is not, however, a case in 
point with Rothemurchie ; there, as in Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch, a 
chorus goes, to my taste, well enough. As to the chorus going 
first, that is the case with Roy's Wife, as well as Rothemurchie. In 
fact, in the first part of both tunes the rhythm is so peculiar and 
irregular, and on that irregularity depends so much of their 
beauty, that we must e'en take them with all their wildness, and 
humour the verse accordingly. Leaving out the starting note in 



CI 4 BURNS' LETTERS. 

both tunes has, I think, an effect that no regularity could counter 
balance the want of. 

Trv -f ° R °y' 8 wife of Aldivalloch. 

y 10 lassie wi' the lint-white locks, 

and 

comnara with I R °y' s wife of Aldivalloch. 
compare with | Lasgie wi . the lint . white locks# 

Does not the tameness of the prefixed syllable strike you ? In the 
last case, with the true furor of genius, you strike at once into the 
wild originality of the air ; whereas in the first insipid method, it 
is like the grating screw of the pins before the fiddle is brought 
into tune. This is my taste ; if I am wrong, I beg pardon of the 
cognoscenti. 

The Caledonian Hunt is so charming, that it would make any 
subject in a song go down ; but pathos is certainly its native 
tongue. Scottish bacchanalians we certainly want, though the 
few we have are excellent. For instance, Todlin Hame is, for wit 
and humour, an unparalleled composition ; and Andrew and hu 
Cutty Gun is the work of a master. By the way, are you not quite 
vexed to think that those men of genius — for such they certainly 
were — who composed our fine Scottish lyrics, should be unknown ? 
It has given me many a heartache. Apropos to bacchanalian 
son^s in Scottish, I composed one yesterday for an air I like 
much — Lumps o' Pudding (p. 290). 

If you do not relish this air, I will send it to Johnson. 

Since yesterday's penmanship, I have framed a couple of English 
stanzas, by way of an English song to Roy's Wife (p. 290). You 
will allow me, that in this instance my English corresponds in 
sentiment with the Scottish. 

Well ! I think this, to be done in two or three turns across my 
room, and with two or three pinches of Irish Blackguard, is not 
so far amiss. You see I am determined to have my quantum of 
applause from somebody. 

Tell my friend Allan — for I am sure that we only want the 
trifling circumstance of being known to one another, to be the 
best friends on earth — that I much suspect ho has, in his plates, 
mistaken the figure of the stock and horn. I have at last gotten 
one, but it is a very rude instrument. It is composed of three 
parts : the stock, which is the hinder thigh-bone of a sheep, such 
as you see in a mutton ham ; the horn, which is a common High- 
land cow's horn, cut off at the smaller end until the aperture be 
large enough to admit the stock to be pushed up through the horn 
until it be held by the thicker end of the thigh-bone ; and lastly, 
an oaten reed, exactly cut and notched like that which you see 
every shepherd-boy have when the corn-stems are green and full- 
grown. The reed is not made fast in the bone, but is held by the 
lips, and plays loose in the smaller end of the stock ; while the 
stock, with the horn hanging on its larger end, is held by the 
hands in playing. The stock has six or seven ventages on the 



BURNS' LETTERS. 615 



upper side, and one back-ventage, like the common flute. This 
of mine was made by a man from the Braes of Athole, and is 
exactly what the shepherds wont to use in that country. 

However, either it is not quite properly bored in the holes or 
else we have not the art of blowing it rightly ; for we can make 
little of it. If Mr Allan chooses, I will send him a sight of mine, 
as I look on myself to be a kind of brother-brush with him. " Pride 
in poets is nae sin ;" and I will say it, that I look on Mr Allan 
and Mr Burns to be the only genuine and real painters of Scottish 
costume in the world. R. B. 



CCOXXITI. 
TO PETER MILLER, JUN., ESQ. 

Dumfries, Nov. 1794. 

Dear Sir, — Your offer is indeed truly generous, and most , 
sincerely do I thank you for it ; but in my present situation I 
find that I dare not accept it. You well know my political senti- 
ments ; and were I an insular individual, unconnected with a 
wife and a family of children, with the most fervid enthusiasm I 
would have volunteered my services : I then could and would have 
despised all consequences that might have ensued. 

My prospect in the Excise is something ; at least, it is — encum- 
bered as I am with the welfare, the very existence, of near half- 
a-score of helpless individuals — what I dare not sport with. 

In the meantime, they are most welcome to my Ode ; only, let 
them insert it as a thing they have met with by accident, and 
unknown to me. Nay, if Mr Perry, whose honour, after your 
character of him, I cannot doubt, if he will give me an address 
and channel by which anything will come safe from those spies 
with which he may be certain that his correspondence is beset, I 
will now and then send him any bagatelle that I may write. In 
the present hurry of Europe, nothing but news and politics will be 
regarded ; but against the days of peace, which Heaven send 
soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of 
a newspaper. I have long had it in my head to try my hand in 
the way of little prose essays, which I propose sending into the 
world through the medium of some newspaper ; and should these 
be worth his while, to these Mr Perry shall he welcome : and all 
my reward shall be — his treating me with his paper, which, by the 
by, to anybody who has the least relish for wit, is a high treat 
Indeed. With the most grateful esteem, I am ever, dear sir, 

R. B. 



•16 BURNS' LETTERS, 



CCCXXIV. 
TO MRS DUNLOP, 

IN LONDON. 

Dumfries, 20th December 1794 

I HAVE been prodigiously disappointed in this London journey 
of yours. In the first place, when your last to me reached Dum- 
fries, I was in the country, and did not return until too late to 
answer your letter ; in the next place, I thought you would cer- 
tainly take this route ; and now I know not what has become of 
you, or whether this may reach you at all. God grant that it 
may find you and yours in prospering health and good spirits ! 
Do let me hear from you the soonest possible. 

As I hope to get a frank from my friend Captain Miller, I shall, 
every leisure hour, take up the pen, and gossip away whatever 
comes first — prose or poetry, sermon or song. In this last article 
I have abounded of late. I have often mentioned to you a 
superb publication of Scottish Songs, which is making its appear- 
ance in your great metropolis, and where I have the honour to 
preside over the Scottish verse, as no less a personage than Peter 
Pindar does over the English. 

December 29th. 

Since I began this letter, I have been appointed to act in the 
capacity of supervisor here ; and I assure you, what with the load 
of business, and what with that business being new to me, I could 
scarcely have commanded ten minutes to have spoken to you had 
you been in town, much less to have written you an epistle. This 
appointment is only temporary, and during the illness of the 
present incumbent ; but I look forward to an early period when I 
shall be appointed in full form — a consummation devoutly to be 
wished 1 My political sins seem to be forgiven me. 

This is the season (New-Year's Day is now my date) of wish* 
ing : and mine are most fervently offered up for you ! May life 
to you be a positive blessing while it lasts, for your own sake ; and 
that it may yet be greatly prolonged, is my wish for my own sake, 
and for the sake of the rest of your friends 1 What a transient 
business is life ! Very lately, I was a boy ; but t'other day I was 
a young man ; and I already begin to feel the rigid fibre and stiffen- 
ing joints of old age coming fast o'er my frame. With all my 
follies of youth, and, I fear, a few vices of manhood, still I con- 
gratulate myself on having had, in early days, religion strongly 
impressed on my mind. I have nothing to say to any one as to 
which sect he belongs to, or what creed he believes ; but I look on 
the man who is firmly persuaded of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness 
superintending and directing every circumstance that can happen 
ia his lot— I felicitate such a man as having a solid foundation for 



BURNS' LETTERS. 611 



his mental enjoyment — a firm prop and sure stay in the hour of 
difficulty, trouble, and distress — and a never-failing anchor of hope 
when he looks beyond the grave. 

12th January [1795]. 

You will have seen our worthy and ingenious friend, the doctor 
[Dr Moore], long ere this. I hope he is well, and beg to be re- 
membered to him. I have just been reading over again, I daresay 
for the hundred and fiftieth time, his View of Society and Manners ; 
and still I read it with delight. His humour is perfectly original 
— it is neither the humour of Addison, nor Swift, nor Sterne, nor 
of anybody but Dr Moore. By the by, you have deprived me of 
Zeluco ; remember that when you are disposed to rake up the 6ins 
of my neglect from among the ashes of my laziness. 

He has paid me a pretty compliment by quoting me in his last 
publication. R. B. 



cccxxv. 

[In the neighbourhood of Dumfries lived a farmer whom Bums fre- 
quently visited. The farmer fell in love, and asked Bums to assist him 
in framing a proper letter to the lady. Burns furnished him with the two 
following drafts of a love-letter The farmer was successful in his 
suit.] 

Madam,— What excuse to make for the liberty I am going to 
assume in this letter, I am utterly at a loss. If the most unfeigned 
respect for your accomplished worth — if the most ardent attach- 
ment — if sincerity and truth — if these, on my part, will in any 
degree weigh with you, my apology is these, and these alone. 
Little as I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance, it has 
been enough to convince me what enviable happiness must be his 
whom you shall honour with your particular regard, and more 
than enough to convince me how unworthy I am to offer myself 
a candidate for that partiality. In this kind of trembling hope, 
madam, I intend very soon doing myself the honour of waiting 
on you, persuaded that, however little Miss G may be dispos- 
ed to attend to the suit of a lover as unworthy of her as I am, she 
is still too good to despise an honest man, whose only fault is lov- 
ing her too much for his own peace. I have the honour to be, 
madam, your most devoted humble servant. 

Dear Madam, — The passion of love had need to be productive 
of much delight ; as where it takes thorough possession of the man, 
it almost unfits him for anything else. The lover who is certain 
of an equal return of affection is surely the happiest of men ; but 
he who is a prey to the horrors of anxiety and dreaded disappoint- 
ment is a being whose situation is by no means enviable. Of this, 



618 EURNS* LETTERS. 



my present experience gives me sufficient proof. To me, amuse- 
ment seems impertinent, and business intrusion, while you alone 
engross every faculty of my mind. May I request you to drop 
me a line, to inform me when I may wait on you ; for pity's sake, 
do ; and let me have it soon. In the meantime, allow me, in all 
the artless sincerity of truth, to assure you that I truly am, my 
dearest madam, your ardent lover, and devoted humble servant. 



CCCXXVI. 

[The following note was written on behalf of a Mend who complained 
to Burns of the irregular delivery of the newspaper. From pruden:ial 
motives, it was never sent.] 

TO THE EDITOR OF THE « MORNING GHRONICLE.'* 

Sir, — You will see, by your subscribers' list, that I have been 
about nine months of that number. 

I am sorry to inform you, that in that time seven or eight of 
your papers either have never been sent me, or else have never 
reached me. To be deprived of any one number of the first news- 
paper in Great Britain for information, ability, and independence 
is what I can ill brook and bear ; but to be deprived of that most 
admirable oration of the Marquis of Lansdowne, when he made 
the great though ineffectual attempt (in the language of the poet, 
I fear too true) " to save a sinking state" — thi3 was a loss that 
I neither can nor will forgive you. That paper, sir, never reached 
me ; but I demand it of you. I am a Briton, and must be 
interested in the cause of Liberty; I am a man, and the rights 
of human nature cannot be indifferent to me. However, do 
not let me mislead you — I am not a man in that situation of life 
which, as your subscriber, can be of any consequence to you in 
the eyes of those to whom situation of life aloxe is the 
criterion of man. I am but a plain tradesman in this distant, 
obscure country-town ; but that humble domicile in which I shel- 
ter my wife and children is the Castellum of a Briton ; and 
chat scanty, hard-earned income which supports them is as truly 
my property as the most magnificent fortune of the most puis- 
sant member of your House of Nobles. 

These sir, are my sentiments, and to them I subscribe my 
name ; and were I a man of ability and consequence enough tq 
address the public, with that name should they appear. I am, 



BURNS' LETTERS. 619 



CCCXXVII. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

January 1795. 

I fear for my songs ; however, a few may please, yet origin ality 
is a coy feature in composition, and in a multiplicity of efforts in 
the same style, disappears altogether. For these three thousand 
years, we poetic folks have been describing the spring, for instance ; 
and as the spring continues the same, there must soon be a same- 
ness in the imagery, &c, of these said rhyming folks 

A great critic (Aikin) on songs says, that love and wine are tho 
exclusive themes for song-writing. The following is on neither 
subject, and consequently is no song, but will be allowed, I think, 
to be two or three pretty good prose thoughts inverted into rhyme 
(p. 291). 

Jan. 15th. — The foregoing has. lain by me this fortnight, for want 
of a spare moment. The supervisor of excise here being ill, I have 
been acting for him, and I assure you I have hardly five minutes 
to myself to thank you for your elegant present of Pindar. The 
typography is admirable, and worthy of the truly original bard. 

I do not give you the foregoing song for your book, but merely 
by way of vive la bagatelle ; for the piece is not really poetry. 

R. B. 



CCCXXVIII. 
TO MRS RIDDEL. 

MR Burns's compliments to Mrs Riddel — is much obliged to 
her for her polite attention in sending him the book. Owing to 
Mr B. at present acting as supervisor of Excise, a department that 
occupies his every hour of the day, he has not that time to spare 
which is necessary for any belles-lettres pursuit ; but as he will in 
a week or two again return to his wonted leisure, he will then pay 
that attention to Mrs R.'s beautiful song, To thee, loved Nith, which 
it so well deserves. When Anacharsis's Travels come to hand, 
which Mrs Riddel mentioned as her gift to the public library, 
Mr B. will feel honoured by the indulgence of a perusal of them 
before presentation. It is a book he has never yet seen, and 
the regulations of the library allow too little leisure for deliberate 
reading. 

FHday evening. 

P.S. — Mr Burns will be much obliged to Mrs Riddel, if she will 
favour him with a perusal of any of her poetical pieces which he 
may not have seen. 



fi 20 BURNS' LETTERS. 



CCCXXIX. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

Ecclefechan, 7th February 1795. 

My dear Thomson, — You cannot have any idea of the predi« 
cament in which I write to you. In the course of my duty as 
supervisor — in which capacity I have acted of late — I came yester- 
night to this unfortunate, wicked little village. I have gone for- 
ward, but snows of ten feet deep have impeded my progress ; 1 
have tried to gae back the gait I cam again, but the same obstacle 
has shut me up within insuperable bars. To add to my misfor- 
tune, since dinner, a scraper has been torturing catgut, in sounds 
that would have insulted the dying agonies of a sow under the 
hands of a butcher, and thinks himself, on that very account, ex- 
ceeding good company. In fact, I have been in a dilemma, either 
to get drunk, to forget these miseries ; or to hang myself, to get 
rid of them. Like a prudent man — a character congenial to my 
every thought, word, and deed — I, of two evils, have chosen the 
least, and am very drunk, at your service ! 

I wrote you yesterday from Dumfries. I had not time then to 
tell you all I wanted to say, and at present I have not capacity. 

Do you know an air — I am sure you must know it — We'll gang 
nae mair to yon Town ? I think, in slowish time, it would make 
an excellent song. I am highly delighted with it ; and if you 
should think it worthy of your attention, I have a fair dame in 
my eye, to whom I would consecrate it. Try it with this doggrel 
(p. 299) — until I give you a better. 

As I am just going to bed, I wish you a good-night. R. B. 

P.S. — As I am likely to be storm-staid here to-morrow, if I am 
in the humour, you shall have a long letter from me. 



cccxxx. 

TO MR HERON OF HERON. 

Sir, — I enclose you some copies of a couple of political ballads, 
one of which, I believe, you have never seen. Would to Heaven 
I could make you master of as many votes in the Stewartry — but — 

Who does the utmost that he can, 
^ Does well, acts nobly— angels could no more. 

In order to bring my humble efforts to bear with more effect 
on the foe, I have privately printed a good many copies of both 
oallads, and have sent them among friends all about the country. 

To pillory on Parnassus the rank reprobation of character, tho 
utter dereliction of all principle, in a profligate junto, which has 



BURNS' LETTERS. 621 



not only outraged virtue, but violated common decency, spurning 
even hypocrisy as paltry iniquity below their daring — to unmask 
their flagitiousness to the broadest day — to deliver such over to 
their merited fate — is surely not merely innocent, but laudable ; 
is not only propriety, but virtue. You have already, as you* 
auxiliary, the sober detestation of mankind on the heads of your 
opponents ; and I swear by the lyre of Thalia, to muster on your 
side all the votaries of honest laughter, and fair, candid ridicule. 
I am extremely obliged to you for your kind mention of in} 
interests in a letter which Mr Syme shewed me. At present, my 
situation in life must be in a great measure stationary, at least for 
two or three years. The statement is this — I am on the super- 
visors' list, and as we come on there by precedency, in two or three 
years I shall be at the head of that list, and be appointed of course. 
Then, a friend might be of service to me in getting me into a 
place of the kingdom which I would like. A supervisor's income 
varies from about a hundred and twenty to two hundred a year ; 
but the business is an incessant drudgery, and would be nearly a 
complete bar to every species of literary pursuit. The moment I 
am appointed supervisor, in the common routine, I may be nomi- 
nated on the collector's list; and this is always a business purely 
of political patronage. A collectorship varies much, from better 
than two hundred a year to near a thousand. They also come 
forward by precedency on the list ; and have, besides a handsome 
income, a life of complete leisure. A life of literary leisure, with 
a decent competency, is the summit of my wishes. It would be 
the prudish affectation of silly pride in me to say that I do not 
need, or would not be indebted to, a political friend ; at the same 
time, sir, I by no means lay my affairs before you thus, to hook 
my .dependent situation on your benevolence. If, in my progress 
of life, an opening should occur where the good offices of a gentle- 
man of your public character and political consequence might 
bring me forward, I shall petition your goodness with the same 
frankness as I now do myself the honour to subscribe myself, 

R. B. 



CCCXXXI. 

TO JOHN SYME, ESQ. 

You know that, among other high dignities, you have the 
honour to be my supreme court of critical judicature, from which 
there is no appeal. I enclose you a song (0 watye, p. 299) which 
I composed since I saw you, and I am going to give you the history 
of it. Do you know that among much that I admire in the char* 
acters and manners of those great folks whom I have now the 
honour U sail my acquaintances,— the Oswald family,— there is 



622 BURNS' LETTERS. 



nothing charms me more than Mr Oswald's unconcealable attach 
ment to that incomparable woman ? • Did you ever, my dear Syme, 
meet with a man who owed more to the Divine Giver of all good 
things than Mr 0. ? A fine fortune, a pleasing exterior, self- 
evident amiable dispositions, and an ingenuous, upright mind, 
and that informed, too, much beyond the usual run of young 
fellows of his rank and fortune : and to all this, such a woman ! — 
but of her I must say nothing at all, in despair of saying anything 
adequate. In my song, I have endeavoured to do justice to what 
would be his feelings, on seeing, in the scene I have drawn, the 
habitation of his Lucy. As I am a good deal pleased with my 
performance, I, in my first fervour, thought of sending it to Mrs 
Oswald, but, on second thoughts, perhaps what I offer as the 
honest incense of genuine respect, might, from the well-known 
character of poverty and poetry, be construed into some modi- 
fication or other of that servility which my soul abhors. Do let 
me know some convenient moment, ere the worthy family leave 
the town, that I, with propriety, may wait on them. In the circle 
of the fashionable herd, those who come either to show their own 
consequence, or to borrow consequence from the visit — in such a 
mob I will not appear ; mine is a different errand. Yours, 

Rob t . Burns. 



CCCXXXII. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

May 1795. 
Well ! this is not amiss (p. 302). You see how I answer your 
orders — your tailor could not be more punctual. I am just now 
in a high fit for poetising, provided that the strait-jacket of criti- 
cism don't cure me. If you can, in a post or two, administer a 
little of the intoxicating potion of your applause, it will raise your 
humble servant's frenzy to any height you want. I am at this 
moment " holding high converse" with the Muses, and have not 
a word to throw away on such a prosaic dog as you are. R. B. 



CCCXXXIII. 
TO MR THOMSON. 

May 1795. 
Ten thousand thanks for your elegant present — though I am 
ashamed of the value of it being bestowed on a man who has not, 
by any means, merited such an instance of kindness. I have 
Bhown it to two or three judges of the first abilities here, and they 
all agree with me in classing it as a first-rate production. Mj 



BURNS' LETTERS. 628 



phiz is sae kenspeckle, that the very joiner's apprentice, whom 
Mrs Burns employed to break up the parcel (I was out of town 
that day), knew it at once. My most grateful compliments to 
Allan, who has honoured my rustic Muse so much with his masterly 
pencil. One strange coincidence is, that the little one who is 
making the felonious attempt on the cat's tail, is the most striking 
likeness of an ill-deedie, wee, rumble-gairie urchin of mine, whom, 
from that propensity to witty wickedness, and manfu' mischief, 
which, even at twa days auld, I foresaw would form the striking 
features of his disposition, I named AVillie Xicol, after a certain 
friend of mine, who is one of the masters of a grammar-school in 
a city which shall be nameless. Several people think that Allan's 
likeness of me is more striking than Xasniyth's, for which I sat to 
him half-a-dozen times. However, there is an artist of consider- 
able merit just now in this town, who has hit the most remarkable 
likeness of what I am at this moment, that I think ever was taken 
of anybody. It is a small miniature, and as it will be in your 
town getting itself be-crystallized, &c, I have some thoughts of 
suggesting to you to prefix a vignette taken from it to my song, 
Contented w? Little and Canty w? Mair, in order that the portrait 
of my face and the picture of my mind may go down the stream 
of time together. 

Give the enclosed epigram to my much-valued friend Cunning- 
ham, and tell him, that on "Wednesday I go to visit a friend of his, 
to whom his friendly partiality in speaking of me in a manner 
introduced me — I mean a well-known military and literary cha- 
racter, Colonel Dirom. 

You do not tell me how you liked my two last songs. Are they 
condemned ? R. B. 



CCCXXXIV. 

TO MRS DUXLOP. 

16th December 1795. 
My dear Friend,— As I am in a complete Decemberish humour, 
gloomy, sullen, stupid, as even the Deity of Dullness herself could 
wish, I shall not drawl out a heavy letter with a number of heavier 
apologies for my late silence. Only one I shall mention, because 
I know you will sympathize in it : these four months, a sweet 
little girl, my youngest child, has been so ill, that every day, a 
week or less threatened to terminate her existence. There had 
much need be many pleasures annexed to the states of husband 
and father, for they have many peculiar cares. I cannot describe 
to you the anxious, sleepless hours these ties frequently give me. 
I see a train of helpless little folks — me and my exertions all their 
stay ; and on what a brittle thread does the life of man hang ! 
If I am nipt off at the command of fate, even in all the vigour of 



624 BURNS' LETTERS. 



manhood, as I am — such things happen every day — what would 
become of my little flock ? 'Tis here that I envy your people of 
fortune. A father on his death-bed, taking an everlasting leave 
of his children, has indeed woe enough ; but the man of competent 
fortune leaves his sons and daughters independency and friends 

while I But I shall run distracted if I think any longer on 

the subject 

24th December. 
We have had a brilliant theatre here this season ; only, as all 
other business does, it experiences a stagnation of trade from the 
epidemical complaint of the country — want of cash. I mentioned 
our theatre merely to lug in an occasional Address, which I wrote 
for the benefit of one of the actresses, which is as follows (p. 180). 

25th, Christmas Morning. 

This, my much-loved friend, is a morning of wishes ; accept 
mine — so Heaven hear me as they are sincere ! — that blessings 
may attend your steps, and affliction know you not ! In the 
charming words of my favourite author, The "Man of Feeling"— 
" May the Great Spirit bear up the weight of thy gray hairs, and 
blunt the arrow that brings them rest 1" 

Now that I talk of authors, how do you like Cowper ? Is not 
the Task a glorious poem ! The religion of the Task, bating a few 
scraps of Calvinistic divinity, is the religion of God and Nature 
—the religion that exalts, that ennobles man. Were not you to 
send me your Zeluco, in return for mine ? Tell me how you like 
my marks and notes through the book. I would not give a far- 
thing for a book unless I were at liberty to blot it with my criti- 
cisms. 

I have lately collected, for a friend's perusal, all my letters — 1 
mean those which I first sketched, in a rough draught, and after- 
wards wrote out fair. On looking over some old musty papers, 
which from time to time I had parcelled by as trash that was 
scarce worth preserving, and which yet, at the same time, I did 
not care to destroy, I discovered many of these rude sketches, and 
have written, and am writing them out, in a bound MS. for my 
friend's library. As I wrote always to you the rapsody of the 
moment, I cannot find a single scroll to you, except one, about the 
commencement of our acquaintance. If there were any possible 
conveyance, I would send you a perusal of my book. R. B. 



cccxxxv. 

TO MRS RIDDEL. 

Dumfries, 20th January 1796. 
I cannot express my gratitude to you for allowing me a longer 



BURNS' LETTERS. 628 



perusal of Anacharsis. In fact, I never met with a book that 
bewitched me so much ; and I, as a member of the library, must 
warmly feel the obligation you have laid us under. Indeed, to 
me the obligation is stronger than to any other individual of our 
society ; as Anacharsis is an indispensible desideratum to a son 
of the Muses. 

The health you wished me in your morning's card is, I think, 
flown from me for ever. I have not been able to leave my bed to- 
day till about an hour ago. These wickedly unlucky advertise- 
" ments I lent (I did wrong) to a friend, and I am ill able to go in 
quest of him. 

The Muses have not quite forsaken me. The following de- 
tached stanzas I intend to interweave in some disastrous tale of 
a shepherd. R. B. 



CCCXXXVI. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Dumfries, Zlst January 1796. 
These many months you have been two packets in my debt — 
what sin of ignorance I have committed against so highly valued 
a friend, I am utterly at a loss to guess. Alas ! madam, ill can I 
afford, at this time, to be deprived of any of the small remnant 
of my pleasures. I have lately drunk deep of the cup of affliction. 
The autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling child, 
and that at a distance, too, and so rapidly, as to put it out of my 
power to pay the last duties to her. I had scarcely begun to re- 
cover from that shock, when I became myself the victim of a most 
severe rheumatic fever, and long the die spun doubtful ; until, 
after many weeks of a sick-bed, it seems to have turned up life, 
and I am beginning to crawl across my room, and once indeed 
have been before my own door in the street. 

When pleasure fascinates the mental sight, 
Affliction purines the visual ray, 
Religion hails the drear, the untried night, 
And shuts, for ever shuts ! life's doubtful day. 

R.B. 



CCCXXXVII. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

February 1796. 

Many thanks, my dear sir, for your handsome, elegant present 

to Mrs Burns, and for my remaining volume of P. Pindar. Peter 

is a delightful fellow, and a first favourite of mine. I am much 

pleased with your idea of publishing a collection of our songs in 



626 BURNS' LETTERS, 



octavo, with etchings. I am extremely willing to lend every as- 
listance in my power. The Irish airs I shall cheerfully under- 
take the task of finding verses for. 

I have already, you know, equipt three with words, and the 
other day I strung up a kind of rhapsody to another Hibernian 
melody which I admire much {Hey for a Lass, p. 306). 

If this will do, you have now four of my Irish engagement. In 
my by-past songs I dislike one thing — the name Chloris ; I meant 
it as the fictitious name of a certain lady ; but, on second thoughts, 
it is a high incongruity to have a Greek appellation to a Scottish 
pastoral ballad. Of this, and some things else, in my next : I 
have more amendments to propose. What you once mentioned of 
" flaxen locks" is just ; they cannot enter into an elegant descrip- 
tion of beauty. Of this also agam — God bless you I R. B. 



cccxxxvm. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

April 1796. 
Alas ! my dear Thomson, I fear it will be some time ere I tune 
my lyre again ! " By Babel streams I have sat and wept" almost 
ever since I wrote you last. I have only known existence by the 
pressure of the heavy hand of sickness, and have counted time by 
the repercussions of pain ! Rheumatism, cold, and fever, have 
formed to me a terrible combination. I close my eyes in misery, 
and open them without hope. I look on the vernal day, and say, 
with poor Fergusson — 

« Say, wherefore has an all-indulgent Heaven 
Light to the comfortless and wretched given ?" 

This will be delivered to you by a Mrs Hyslop, landlady of the 
Globe Tavern here, which for these many years has been my 
howff, and where our friend Clarke and I have had many a merry 
squeeze. I mention this, because she will be a very proper hand 
to bring that seal you talk of. I am highly delighted with Mr 
Allan's etchings. Woo'd an' married cm' a\ is admirable ! The 
grouping is beyond all praise. The expression of the figures 
conformable to the story in the ballad, is absolutely faultless per- 
fection. I next admire Turnimspike. What I like least is Jenny 
said to JocJcy. Besides the female being in her appearance quite 
a virago, if you take her stooping into the account, she is at least 
two inches taller than her lover. Poor Cleghorn ! I sincerely 
sympathise with him. Happy I am to think that he has a well- 
grounded hope of health and enjoyment in this world. Farewell , 

R.B. 



burns' letters. 627 



CCCXXXIX. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

[May 17, 1796.] 

My dear Sir, — I once mentioned to you an air which I have 
long admired — Here's a health to them that's aiva, hiney, but I for- 
get if you took any notice of it. I have just been trying to suit 
it with verses, and I beg leave to recommend the air to your at- 
tention once more. I have only begun it (p. 307). 

This will be delivered by a Mr Lewars, a young fellow q£ un- 
common merit ; indeed, by far the cleverest fellow I have met with 
in this part of the world. His only fault is D-m-cratic heresy. 
As he will be a day or two in town, you will have leisure, if you 
choose, to write me by him ; and if you have a spare half hour to 
spend with him, I shall place your kindness to my account. I 
have no copies of the songs I have sent you, and I have taken a 
fancy to review them all, and possibly may mend some of them : 
so, when you have complete leisure, I will thank you for either 
the originals or copies. I had rather be the author of five well- 
written songs than often otherwise. I have great hopes that the 
genial influence of the approaching summer will set me to rights, 
but as yet I cannot boast of returning health. I have now reason 
to believe that my complaint is a flying gout— a sad business I 

Do let me know how Cleghorn is, and remember me to him s 

This should have been delivered to you a month ago, but my 
friend's trunk miscarried, and was not recovered till he came here 
again. I am still very poorly, but should like much to hear from 
you. R. B. 



CCCXL. 

TO MRS RIDDEL. 

Dotfeies, 4th June, 1796. 

I am in such miserable health, as to be utterly incapable of 
shewing my loyalty in any way. Racked as I am with rheuma- 
tisms, I meet every face with a greeting, like that of Balak to 
Balaam — " Come, curse me, Jacob ; and come, defy me, Israel !" 
So say I : Come, curse me, that east wind ; and come, defy me 
the north! Would you have me in such circumstances copy you 
out a love-song ? 

I may perhaps see you on Saturday, but I will not be at the 
ball. Why .should I? — "Man delights not me, nor woman 
either J" Can you sspply me with the song, Let us all be unhappy 
together 1 — do, if you can, and oblige le pauvre miserable, R. B, 



2b 



C38 BURNS' LETTERS. 



CCCXLI. 
TO MR JAMES CLARKE. 

SCHOOLMASTER, FORFAR. 

Dumfries, 26th June 1796. 

My DEAR Clarke,— Still, still the victim of affliction ! Were 
you to see the emaciated figure who now holds the pen to you, 
you would not know your old friend. Whether I shall ever get 
about again, is only known to Him, the Great Unknown, whose 
creature I am. Alas, Clarke ! I begin to fear the worst. As to 
my individual self, I am tranquil, and would despise myself if I 
were not ; but Burns's poor widow, and half-a-dozen of his dear 
little ones — helpless orphans ! — there I am weak as a woman's 
tear. Enough of this ! 'Tis half of my disease. 

I duly received your last, enclosing the (pound) note. It came 
extremely in time, and I am much obliged by your punctuality. 
Again I must request you to do me the same kindness. Be so 
very good as, by return of post, to enclose me another note. I 
trust you can do it without inconvenience, and it will seriously 
oblige me. If I must go, I shall leave a few friends behind me, 
whom I shall regret while consciousness remains. I know I shall 
live in their remembrance. Adieu, dear Clarke. That I shall 
ever see you again is, I am afraid, highly improbable. R. B. 



CCCXLII. 
TO MR JAMES JOHNSON, EDINBURGH. 

Dumfries, 4th July 1796. 

How are you, my dear friend, and how comes on your fifth 
volume? You may probably think that for some time past I 
have neglected you and your work ; but, alas ! the hand of pain 
and sorrow, and care, has these many months lain heavy on me. 
Personal and domestic affliction have almost entirely banished 
that alacrity and life with which I used to woo the rural Muse of 
Scotia. 

You are a good, worthy, honest fellow, and have a good right 
to live in this world— because you deserve it. Many a merry 
meeting this publication has given us, and possibly it may give 
us more, though, alas ! I fear it. This protracting, slow, consum- 
ing illness which hangs over me, will, I doubt much, my ever-dear 
friend, arrest my sun before he has well reached his middle career, 
and will turn over the poet to far more important concerns than 
studying the brilliancy of wit or the pathos of sentiment. How- 
ever, hope is the cordial of the human heart, and I endeavour to 
cherish it as well as I can. 



BURNS' LETTERS. 629 



Let me hear from you as soon as convenient. Your work is a 
great one ; and now that it is finished, I see, if we were to begin 
again, two or three things that might be mended ; yet I will ven- 
ture to prophesy, that to future ages your publication will be the 
text-book and standard of Scottish song and music. 

I am ashamed to ask another favour of you, because you have 
been so very good already ; but my wife has a very particular 
friend of hers, a young lady who sings well, to whom she wishes 
to present the Scots Musical Museum. If you have a spare copy, 
will you be so obliging as to send it by the very first fly, as I am 
anxious to have it soon? Yours ever, R. B. 



ccxliii. 
to mr george thomson. 

Brow, 4th July. 
My dear Sir, — I received your songs ; but my health is so 
precarious, nay, dangerously situated, that as a last effort I am 
here at sea-bathing quarters. Besides my inveterate rheumatism, 
my appetite is quite gone, and I am so emaciated as to be scarce 
able to support myself on my own legs. Alas! is this a time for 
me to woo the Muses ? However, I am still anxiously willing to 
serve your work, and, if possible, shall try. I would not like to 
see another employed, unless you could lay your hand upon a 
poet whose productions would be equal to the rest. You will see 
my remarks and alterations on the margin of each song. My 
address is still Dumfries. Farewell, and God bless you ! 

R. Burns. 



CCCXLIV. 

TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 

Brow, Sea-bathing Quarters, 7th July 1796. 
My dear Cunningham, — I received yours here this moment, 
and am indeed highly flattered with the approbation of the literary 
circle you mention — a literary circle inferior to none in the two 
kingdoms. Alas ! my friend, I fear the voice of the bard will 
soon be heard among you no more. For these eight or ten 
months, I have been ailing, sometimes bedfast, and sometimes 
not ; but these last three months I have been tortured with an 
excruciating rheumatism, which has reduced me to nearly the 
last stage. You actually would not know me if you saw me. 
Pale, emaciated, and so feeble as occasionally to need help from 
my chair— my spirits fled ! fled !— but I can no more on the sub* 
ject ; only the medical folks tell me that my last and only chance 
is bathing, and country quarters, and riding. The worst of the 



830 BURNS' LETTERS. 



matter is this : when an exciseman is off duty, his salary is re« 
duced to L.35 instead of L.50. What way, in the name of thrift, 
shall I maintain myself, and keep a horse in country quarters, 
with a wife and five children at home, on L.35 ? I mention this, 
because I had intended to beg your utmost interest, and that of 
all the friends you can muster, to move our commissioners of 
Excise to grant me the full salary ; I daresay you know them all 
personally. If they do not grant it me, I must lay my account 
with an exit truly en poete — if I die not of disease, I must perish 
with hunger. 

I have sent you one of the songs ; the other my memory does 
not serve me with, and I have no copy here ; but I shall be at 
home soon, when I will send it you. Apropos to being at home 
Mrs Burns threatens in a week or two to add one more to my 
paternal charge, which, if of the right gender, I intend shall be 
introduced to the world by the respectable designation of Alexander 
Cunningham Burns, My last was James Glencairn, so you can 
Have no objection to the company of nobility. Farewell ! R. B. 



CCCXLV. 
TO MR GILBERT BURNS. 

Sunday, 10th July 179G. 
Dear Brother, — It will be no very pleasing news to you to 
be told that I am dangerously ill, and not likely to get better 
An inveterate rheumatism has reduced me to such a state of de- 
bility, and my appetite is so totally gone, that I can scarcely 
stand on my legs. I have been a week at sea-bathing, and I wil] 
continue there, or in a friend's house in the country, all the sum- 
mer. God keep my wife and children ; if I am taken from their 
head, they will be poor indeed. I have contracted one or two 
serious debts, partly from my illness these many months, partly 
from too much thoughtlessness as to expense when I came to 
town, that will cut in too much on the little I leave them in your 
hands. Remember me to my mother. Yours, R. B. 



CCCXLVI. 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Beow, 12th July 1796 
Madam, — I have written you so often, without receiving any 
answer, that I would not trouble you again, but for the circum- 
stances in which I am. An illness which has long hung about 
me, in all probability will speedily send me beyond that bourn 
whence no traveller returns. Your friendship, with which, for many 
years you honoured me, was a friendship dearest to my soul. 
Your conversation, and especially your correspondence, were at 



burns' LETTERS. 681 



once highly entertaining and instructive. With what pleasure 
did I use to break up the seal ! The remembrance yet adds one 
pulse more to my poor palpitating heart. Farewell ! ! ! R. B. 



CCCXLTII. 
TO MR JAMES BUKNES, 

WRITER, MONTROSE. 

Dumfries, 12: : > July. 
My dear Cousen*, — "When you offered me money assistance, 

little did I think I should want it so soon. A rascal of a haber- 
dasher, to whom I owe a considerable bill, taking it into his head 
that I am dying, has commenced a process against me, and will 
infallibly put my emaciated body into jail.* Will you be so good 
as to accommodate me, and that by return of post, with ten 
pounds ? Oh, James ! did you know the pride of my heart, you 
would feel doubly for me ! Alas ! I am not used to beg. The 
worst of it is, my health was coming about finely. You know, and 
my physician assured me, that melancholy and low spirits are 
half my disease — guess, then, my horrors since this business began. 
If I had it settled, I would be, I think, quite well in a manner. 
How shall I use the language to you — oh, do not disappoint me ! 
but strong necessity's command. 

I have been thinking over and over my brother's affairs, and I 
fear I must cut him up ; but on this I will correspond at another 
time, particularly as I shall [require] your advice. 

Forgive me for once more mentioning by return of post — save 
me from the horrors of a jail ! 

My compliments to my friend James, and to all the rest. I do 
not know what I have written. The subject is so horrible, I dare 
not look it over again. Farewell ! R. B. 



CGpxLym. 

TO MR THOMSON. 

Brow, on the Sohxa.y Frith, 12th. July 1796. 
After all my boasted independence, necessity compels me to 
implore you for five pounds. A cruel scoundrel of a haberdasher, 
to whom I owe an account, taking into his head that I am dying. 
has commenced a process, and will infallibly put me into jail. Do. 
for God's sake, send me that sum, and that by return of post. 
Forgive me this earnestness ; but the horrors of a jail have made 
me half distracted. I do not ask all this gratuitously ; for, upon 

* There is no reason to suppose Burns was threatened withbelngr put in jail; he 
was only Trritten to by a lawyer for,payment of an old debt, and, in his exeitsblf 
8tat«, he took thia view of the application. 



632 BURN8' LETTERS. 



returning health, I hereby promise and engage to furnish you 
with five pounds' worth of the neatest song-geniu3 you have seen. 
I tried my hand on Rothemurchie this morning. The measure ia 
so difficult, that it is impossible to infuse much genius into the 
lines ; they are on the other side (p. 308). Forgive, forgive me ! 

R.B. 

CCCXLIX. 

TO JAMES GRACIE, ESQ. 

Bbow, Wednesday morning, [IZth July.] 
My DEAR Sir — It would [be] doing high injustice to this place 
not to acknowledge that my rheumatisms have derived great bene- 
fits from it already ; but alas ! my loss of appetite still continues. 
I shall not need your kind offer this week, and I return to town 
the beginning of next week, it not being a tide-week. I am de- 
taining a man in a burning hurry. So, God bless you ! R. B. 



GCCL. 

TO MRS BURNS. 

Brow, Thursday. 
My DEAREST Love, — I delayed writing until I could tell you 
what effect sea-bathing was likely to produce. It would be injustice 
to deny that it has eased my pains, and I think has strengthened 
me ; but my appetite is still extremely bad. No flesh nor fish can 
I swallow ; porridge and milk are the only thing I can taste. I 
am very happy to hear, by Miss Jess Lewars, that you are all 
well. My very best and kindest compliments to her, and to all 
the children. I will see you on Sunday. Your affectionate hus- 
band, R. B. 



CCCLI. 
TO MR JAMES ARMOUR, MAUCHLINE.* 

Dumpries, 18th July 1796. 
My dear Sir, — Do, for Heaven's sake, send Mrs Armour 
here immediately. My wife is hourly expecting to be put to bed. 
"What a situation for her to be in, poor girl, without a friend ! I 
returned from sea-bathing quarters to-day, and my medical friend3 
would almost persuade me that I am better ; but I think and feel 
that my strength is so gone, that the disorder will prove fatal to 
me. Your son-in-law, R. B. 

* Supposed to be the last letter or composition written by Burns : he died on the 
list. 



BURNS' AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



TO DR MOORE. 



Matjchline, 2d August 1787. 
Sir, — For some months past I have been rambling over the 
country, but I am now confined with some lingering complaints, 
originating, as I take it, in the stomach. To divert my spirits a 
little in this miserable fog of ennui, I have taken a whim to give 
you a history of myself. My name has made some little noise in 
this country — you have done me the honour to interest yourself 
very warmly in my behalf; and I think a faithful account of what 
character of a man I am, and how I came by that character, may 
perhaps amuse you in an idle moment. I will give you an honest 
narrative, though I know it will be often at my own expense ; for 
I assure you, sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character, excepting 
in the trifling affair of ivisdom, I sometimes think I resemble — I 
have, I say, like him, turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, 
and, like him, too frequently shaken hands with their intoxicating 
friendship. * * * After you have perused these pages, should 
you think them trifling and impertinent, I only beg leave to tell 
you that the poor author wrote them under some twitching qualms 
of conscience, arising from suspicion that he was doing what he 
ought not to do— a predicament he has more than once been in 

before. 

* * * *- * * * 

I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that cha 
racter which the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentle- 
man. "When at Edinburgh last winter, I got acquainted in the 
Herald's Ofiice ; and looking through that granary of honours, I 
there found almost every name in the kingdom ; but for me, 

" My ancient but ignoble blood 
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood." 

Gules, Purpure, Argent, &c, quite disowned me. 

My father was of the north of Scotland, the son of a farmer, 
and was thrown by early misfortunes on the world at large, where, 
after many years' wanderings and sojournings ; he picked up a 



SZi BURNS' autobiography. 

pretty large quantity of observation and experience, to which 1 
am indebted for most of my little pretensions to wisdom. I have 
met with few who understood men, their manners, and their ways, 
equal to him ; but stubborn, ungainly integrity, and headlong 
ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying circumstances ; conse- 
quently I was born a very poor man's son. For the first six or 
seven years of my life, my father was gardener to a worthy 
gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr. Had 
he continued in that station, I must have marched off to be one 
of the little underlings about a farmhouse ; but it was his dearest 
wish and prayer to have it in his power to keep his children under 
his own eye till they could discern between good and evil ; so, with 
the assistance of his generous master, my father ventured on a 
small farm on his estate. At those years I was by no means a 
favourite with anybody. I was a good deal noted for a retentive 
memory, a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, and an 
enthusiastic idiot piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then but 
a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made 
an excellent English scholar, and by the time I was ten or eleven 
years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. 
In my infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old woman 
who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, 
and superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in 
the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, 
brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead- 
lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, 
dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of 
poetry, but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to 
this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look- 
out in suspicious places ; and though nobody can be more sceptical 
than I am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philo- 
sophy to shake off these idle terrors. The earliest composition 
that I recollect taking pleasure in was The Vision of Mirza, and a 
hymn of Addison's beginning, " How are thy servants blest, 
Lord !" I particularly remember one stanza, which was music to 
my boyish ear : — 

11 For though on dreadful whirls we hung 
High on the broken wave." 

I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my 
school-books. The two first books I ever read in private, and 
which gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read 
since, were, The Life of Hannibal, and The History of Sir William 
Wallace. Hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn, that I used 
to strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum and 
bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier; while the 
story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, which 
frill boil along there till the floodgates of life shut in eternal rest. 



burns' autobiography. QZi 



Polemical divinity about this time was putting* the country 
half mad ; and I, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on 
Sundays, between sermons, at funerals, &c, used, a few years after- 
wards, to puzzle Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion, 
that I raised a hue and cry of heresy against me, which has not 
ceased to this hour. 

My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage to me. My social 
disposition, when not checked by some modification of spirited 
pride, was, like our Catechism definition of infinitude, ivithoat 
bounds or limits. I formed several connections with other younkers 
who possessed superior advantages — the youngling actors, who 
were busy in the rehearsal of parts in which they were shortly to 
appear on the stage of life, where, alas ! I was destined to drudge 
behind the scenes. It is not commonly at this green age that our 
young gentry have a just sense of the immense distance between 
them and their ragged playfellows. It takes a few dashes into 
the world to give the young great man that proper, decent, un- 
noticing disregard for the poor, insignificant, stupid devils, the 
mechanics and peasantry around him, who were perhaps born in 
the same village. My young superiors never insulted the clouterty 
appearance of my plough-boy carcase, the two extremes of which 
were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the seasons. They 
would give me stray volumes of books r among them, even then, I 
could pick up some observations ; and one, whose heart I am sure 
not even the Munny Begum scenes have tainted, helped me to a 
little French. Parting with these my young friends and bene- 
factors, as they occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, 
was often to me a sore affliction ; but I was soon called to more 
serious evils. My father's generous master died ; the farm 
proved a ruinous bargain ; and to clench the misfortune, we fell 
into the hands of a factor, who sat for the picture I have drawn of 
one in my tale of " Twa Dogs." My father was advanced in life 
when he married ; I was the eldest of seven children ; and he, 
worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour. My father's 
spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. There was a 
freedom in his lease in two years more ; and to weather these two 
years, we retrenched our expenses. We lived very poorly. I was 
a dexterous ploughman for my age ; and the next eldest to me 
was a brother (Gilbert) who could drive the plough very well, and 
help me to thrash the corn, A novel-writer might perhaps have 
viewed these scenes with some satisfaction, but so did not I; my 
indignation yet boils at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's 
insolent threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears. 

This kind of life — the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the un- 
ceasing moil of a galley-slave — brought me to my sixteenth year; 
a little before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme. 
You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman 



686 BURNS' AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

together as partners in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth 
autumn, my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger 
than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of 
doing her justice in that language; but you know the Scottish 
idiom — she was a bonnie, sweet, sonde lass. In short, she alto- 
gether, unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious pas- 
sion which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, 
and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, 
our dearest blessing here below ! How she caught the conta- 
gion I cannot tell : you medical people talk much of infection 
from breathing the same air, the touch, &c, but I never expressly 
said I loved her. Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked 
so much to loiter behind with her when returning in the evening 
from our labours ; why the tones of her voice made my heart- 
strings thrill like an ^Eolian harp; and particularly why my 
pulse beat such a furious ratan when I looked and fingered over 
her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. 
Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sang sweetly ; and 
it was her favourite reel to which I attempted to give an embodied 
vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that 
I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who 
had Greek and Latin ; but my girl sang a song which was said 
to be composed by a small country laird's son on one of his 
father's maids with whom he was in love, and I saw no reason 
why I might not rhyme as well as he ; for excepting that he 
could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living in the moor- 
lands, he had no more scholar-craft than myself. 

Thus with me began love and poetry, which at times have 
been my only, and till within the last twelve months, have been 
my highest enjoyment. My father struggled on till he reached 
the freedom in his lease, when he entered on a large farm, about 
ten miles farther in the country. The nature of the bargain he 
made was such as to throw a little ready money into his hands 
at the commencement of his lease ; otherwise the affair would 
have been impracticable. For four years we lived comfortably 
here ; but a difference commencing between him and his land- 
lord as to terms, after three years' tossing and whirling in the 
vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors 
of a jail by a consumption, which, after two years' promises, 
kindly stepped in, and carried him away to where the wicked cease 
from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 

It is during thet ime that we lived on this farm that my little 
story is most eventful. I was, at the beginning of this period, 
perhaps the most ungainly, awkward boy in the parish — no soli* 
taire was less acquainted with the ways of the world. What I 
knew of ancient story was gathered from Salmon's and Guthrie's 
Qeograghkal Grammars ; and the ideas I had formed of modern 



BURNS' AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



637 



manners, of literature and criticism, X got from the Spectator. 
These, with Pope's Works, some plays of Shakspectre, Tuli and 
Dickson on Agriculture, the Pantheon, Locke's Essay on the Human 
Understanding, Stackhouse's History of the Bible, Justice's British 
Gardener's Directory, Bayle's Lectures, Allan Ramsay s Works, 
Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, A Select Collection of 
English Songs, and Hervey's Meditations, had formed the whole of 
my reading. The collection of songs was my vade mecum, I 
pored over them driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by 
song, verse by verse — carefully noting the true, tender, or sublime, 
from affectation and fustian. I am convinced I owe to this prac- 
tice much of my critic craft, such as it is. 

In my seventeenth year, to give my manners a brush, I went 
to a country dancing-school. My father had an unaccountable 
antipathy against these meetings, and my going was, what to this 
moment I repent, in opposition to his wishes. My father, as I 
said before, was subject to strong passions ; from that instance of 
disobedience in me he took a sort of dislike to me, which I believe 
was one cause of the dissipation which marked my succeeding 
years. I say dissipation, comparatively with the strictness, and 
sobriety and regularity of Presbyterian country life ; for though 
the Will-o'-Wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the 
sole lights of my path, yet early- in grained piety and virtue kept 
me for several years afterwards within the line of innocence. 
The great misfortune of my life was to want an aim. I had felt 
early some stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings 
of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave. I saw my 
father's situation entailed on me perpetual labour. The only two 
openings by which I could enter the temple of fortune was, the 
gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little chicaning bargain- 
making. The first is so contracted an aperture, I never could 
squeeze myself into it ; the last I always hated — there was con- 
tamination in the very entrance 1 Thus, abandoned of aim or 
view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well from 
native hilarity as from a pride of observation and remark ; a 
constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm that made me fly to 
solitude ; add to these incentives to social life my reputation for 
bookish knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a strength 
of thought, something like the rudiments of good sense, and it 
will not seem surprising that I was generally a welcome guest 
where I visited, or any great wonder that always where two or 
three met together, there was I among them. But far beyond all 
other impulses of my heart, was un penchant a V adorable moitii 
du genre humain. My heart was completely tinder, and was 
eternally lighted up by some goddess or other ; and as in every 
other warfare in this world, my fortune was various, sometimes I 
wm received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a 



588 BURNS' AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared no compe- 
titor, and tfrus I set absolute want at defiance ; and as I never 
cared farther for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, 
I spent the evenings in the way after my own heart. A country 
lad seldom carries on a love adventure without an assisting con- 
fidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity that 
recommended me as a proper second on these occasions ; and I 
daresay I felt as much pleasure in being in the secret of half the 
loves of the parish of Torbolton, as ever did statesman in knowing 
the intrigues of half the courts of Europe. The very goose feather 
in my hand seems to know instinctively the well-worn path of my 
imagination, the favourite theme of my song, and is with difficulty 
restrained from giving you a couple of paragraphs on the love ad- 
ventures of my compeers, the humble inmates of the farmhouse 
and cottage ; but the grave sons of science, ambition, or avarice 
baptise these things by the name of follies. To the sons and 
daughters of labour and poverty they are matters of the most 
serious nature ; to them the ardent hope, the stolen interview, the 
tender farewell, are the greatest and most delicious parts of their 
enjoyments. 

Another circumstance in my life which made some alteration 
m my mind and manners was, that I spent my nineteenth summer 
on a smuggling coast, a good distance from home, at a noted 
school, to learn mensuration, surveying, dialling, &c, in which I 
made a pretty good progress. But I made a greater progress in 
the knowledge of mankind. The contraband trade was at that 
time very successful, and it sometimes happened to me to fall in 
with those who carried it on. Scenes of swaggering riot and 
roaring dissipation were till this time new to me ; but I was no 
enemy to social life. Here, though I learnt to fill my glass, and 
to mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went on with a 
high hand with my geometry, till the sun entered Virgo, a month 
which is always a carnival in my bosom, when a charming fillette 
who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and 
set me off at a tangent from the sphere of my studies. I, however, 
struggled on with my sines and co-sims for a few days more ; but 
stepping into the garden one charming noon to take the sun's 
altitude, there I met my angel, 

" Like Proserpine gathering flowers, 
Herself a fairer flower." 

It was in vain to think cf doing any more good at school. The 
remaining week I stayed, I did nothing but craze the faculties of 
my soul about her, or steal out to meet her ; and the two last 
nights of my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the 
image of this modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless. 

I returned home very considerably improved. My reading was 
enlarged with the very important addition of Thomson's ana 



BURNS' AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



Bheustone's works. I had seen human nature in a new phasis ; 
and I engaged several of my schoolfellows to keep up a literary 
correspondence with me. This improved me in composition. 1 
had met with a collection of letters by the wits of Queen Anne's 
reign, and I poured over them most devoutly : I kept copies of any 
of my own letters that pleased me ; and a comparison between 
them and the composition of most of my correspondents flattered 
my vanity. I carried this whim so far, that though I had not 
three farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every 
post brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding 
son of day-book and ledger. 

My life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty- 
third year. Vive Vamour, et vive la bagatelle, were my sole prin- 
ciples of action. The addition of two more authors to my library 
gave me great pleasure ; Sterne and M'Kenzie — Tristram Shandy 
and Tfie If an of Feeling — were my bosom favourites. Poesy was 
still a darling walk for my mind, but it was only indulged in 
according to the humour of the hour. I had usually half-a-dozen 
or more pieces on hand ; I took up one or other, as it suited the 
momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as it bor- 
dered on fatigue. My passions, when once lighted up, raged like 
so many devils, till they got vent in rhyme ; and then the conning 
over my verses, like a spell, soothed all into quite ! None of the 
rhymes of those days are in print, except Winter, a dirge, the 
eldest of my printed pieces ; The Death of Poor Mailie, John Bar- 
leycorn, and songs first, second, and third. Song second was the 
ebullition of that passion which ended the forementioned school- 
business. 

My twenty-third year was to me an important era. Partly 
through whim, and partly that I wished to set about doing some- 
thing in life, I joined a flax-dresser in a neighbouring town (Irvine) 
to learn his trade. This was an unlucky affair, and, to finish the 
whole, as we were giving a welcome carousal to the New-Year, 
the shop took fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left like a true 
poet, not worth a sixpence. 

I was obliged to give up this scheme. The clouds of misfortune 
were gathering thick round my father's head ; and, what was 
worst of all, he was visibly far gone in a consumption ; and, to 
crown my distresses, a belle file whom I adored, and who had 
pledged her soul to meet me in the field of matrimony, jilted me, 
with peculiar circumstances of mortification. The finishing evil 
that brought up the rear of this infernal file, was my constitutional 
melancholy being increased to such a degree, that for three months 
I was in a state of mind scarcely to be envied by the hopeless 
wretches who have got their mittimus — Depart from me, ye 
uccursed I 

From this adventure I learned something of a town life ; but 



649 BURNS' AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

the principal thing which gave my mind a turn, was a friendship 
I formed with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hap- 
less son of misfortune. He was the son of a simple mechanic ; but 
a great man in the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, 
gave him a genteel education, with a view of bettering his situa- 
tion in life. The patron dying just as he was ready to launch out 
into the world, the poor fellow in despair went to sea, where, after 
a variety of good and ill fortune, a little before I was acquainted 
with him, he had been sent on shore by an American privateer 
on the wild coast of Connaught, stripped of everything. I cannot 
quit this poor fellow's story without adding that he is at this time 
master of a large West Indiaman belonging to the Thames. 

His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and 
every manly virtue. I loved and admired him to a degree of en- 
thusiasm, and of course strove to imitate him. In some measure 
L succeeded. I had pride before, but he taught it to flow in proper 
channels. His knowledge of the world was vastly superior to mine, 
and I was all attention to learn. He was the only man I ever saw 
who was a greater fool than myself where woman was the presid- 
ing star ; but he spoke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor, 
which hitherto I had regarded with horror. Here his friendship 
iid me a mischief; and the consequence was, that soon after I 
resumed the plough, I wrote the Poet's Welcome. My reading 
only increased, while in this town, by two stray volumes of Pamela, 
and one of Ferdinand Count Fathom, which gave me some idea 
of novels. Rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in print, 
I had given up ; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, I 
strung anew my wildly-sounding lyre with emulating vigour. 
When my father died, his all went among the hounds that prowl 
in the kennel of justice ; but we made a shift to collect a little 
money in the family amongst us, with which, to keep us together, 
my brother and I took a neighbouring farm. My brother wanted 
my hairbrained imagination, as well as my social and amorous 
' madness ; but in good sense, and every sober qualification, he was 
far my superior. 

I entered on this farm with a full resolution, Come, go to, 1 
will be wise! I read farming books — I calculated crops— I at- 
tended markets, and, in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, 
and the flesh, I believe I should have been a wise man; but the 
first year, from unfortunately buying bad seed, the second, from 
a late harvest, we lost half our crops. This overset all my wisdom, 
and I returned, like the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was 
washed, to her tvalloiuing in the mire. 

I now began to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker 
of rhymes. The first of my poetic offspring that saw the light 
was a burlesque lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend 
Calvinists, both of them dramctiis personce in my Holy Fair, 



BURNS' AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 641 



I had a notion myself that the piece had some merit; but tc 
prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend who was very 
fond of such things, and told him that I could not guess who was 
the author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever. With a cer- 
tain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with a roar 
of applause. Holy Willie's Prayer next made its appearance, and 
alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings 
to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be 
pointed against profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my wander- 
ings led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their 
heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to 
my printed poem, The Lament. This was a most melancholy 
affair, which I cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly 
given me one or two of the principal qualifications for a place 
among those who have lost the chart and mistaken the reckoning 
of rationality. I gave up my part of the farm to my brother — 
in truth it was only nominally mine— and made what little pre- 
paration was in my power for Jamaica. But before leaving my 
native country for ever, I resolved to publish my poems. 1 
weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power : I 
thought they had merit ; and it was a delicious idea that I should 
be called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach tny 
ears— a poor negro-driver ; or, perhaps, a victim to that inhospi- 
table clime, and gone to the world of spirits. I can truly say that 
pauvre inconnu as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea 
of myself and of my works as I have at this moment, when the 
public has decided in their favour. It never was my opinion that 
the mistakes and blunders, both in a rational and religious point 
of view, of which we see thousands daily guilty, are owing to their 
ignorance of themselves. To know myself had been all along my 
constant study. I weighed myself alone — I balanced myself with 
others — I watched every means of information, to see how much 
ground I occupied as a man and as a poet — I studied assiduously 
Nature's design in my formation — where the lights and shades in 
my character were intended. I was pretty confident my poems 
would meet with some applause ; but, at the worst, the roar of 
the Atlantic would deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty 
of West Indian scenes make me forget neglect. I threw off six 
hundred copies, of which I had got subscriptions for about three 
hundred and fifty. My vanity was highly gratified by the recep- 
tion I met with from the public ; and besides, I pocketed, all 
expenses deducted, nearly twenty pounds. This sum came very 
seasonably, as I was thinking of indenting myself, for want oi 
money, to procure my passage. As soon as I was master of nine 
guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid zone, I took a 
steerage passage in the first ship that was to sail from the Clyde ; 
for 



642 BURNS AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



** Hungry ruin hud me in the wind." 

I had been for some days skulking from covert to eovertj 
under all the terrors of a jail : as some ill-advised people had 
uncoupled the merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had 
taken the last farewell of my friends ; my chest was on the road 
to Greenock ; I had composed the last song I should ever measure 
in Caledonia — The Gloomy Night is Gathering Fast — when a letter 
from Dr Blacklock to a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes, 
by opening new prospects to my poetic ambition. The doctor 
belonged to a set of critics for whose applause I had not dared to 
hope. His opinion that I would meet with encouragement in 
Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much, that away I 
posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a single 
letter of introduction. The baneful star that had so long shed 
its blasting influence in my zenith, for once made a revolution tc 
the nadir ; and a kind Providence placed me under the patronage 
of one of the noblest of men — the Earl of Glencairn. Oublk 
moi, Grand JDieu, si jamais je Voublie / 

I need relate no farther. At Edinburgh I was in a new world ; 
I mingled among many classes of men, but all of them new to me, 
and I was all attention to catch the characters and the manners 
living as they rise* "Whether I have profited, time will show. « 



